Why IT Won't Like Mac OS X Lion Server

snydeq writes "InfoWorld's John Rizzo sees Mac OS X Lion Server as a downgrade that may prompt a move to Windows Server. 'Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Server adds innovative features and a new low price tag, but cuts in services and the elimination of advanced GUI administration tools may force some enterprise departments to think twice about the role of Mac servers on their networks,' Rizzo writes. 'Looking more deeply inside Lion Server, it's impossible to avoid the conclusion that Lion Server is not built for those of us in IT. The $50 price tag — down from $500 — is the first clue that Lion Server trying to be a server for the consumer. But the ironic part for IT administrators is that Lion Server actually requires a greater degree of technical knowledge than its predecessors.'"

Comments

mac /= server

[alphatel]

No doubt Apple is backing its new iCloud platform as the way for everyone to share - and damn the so-called hardware Server market. This is the only operating system not natively supported in most virtual machines. IDC doesn't even include Apple in market share reports anymore, and they've clearly de-leveraged their investment over the past few years as opposed to their commitment to growing xServe in 2002

All that aside, I had a client who insisted on moving to OSX Server in 2003 to manage his email. FIle sharing was fine, even over a massive fiber/iscsi San config. But it didn't take long for his users to force a switch to an exchange hosted environment. The features just weren't there and the support or the tech resources to make corrections were far too time-consuming.

Re:mac /= server

[Lumpy]

I will tell you this... a Glassed in Server room full of Apple servers and Xsan are 800X more sexy looking than ANY other manufacturer. When I was IT manager at a comcast regional our Director of sales would take clients down to the production offices to show them THAT server room full of apple servers instead of the real one. Simply because that room looked professional and random Sun+Dell+HP servers look like a hodge podge mess even though it was very clean.

Re:mac /= server

[cplusplus]

It's pronounced "!=". Sheesh ;-)

Re:mac /= server

[Gerzel]

You know if you want something sexy looking you could just glass in a room of sweet looking empty boxes with some leds and fans for a lot less.

Re:mac /= server

[Spad]

These days, honestly, if there is then you're doing it wrong.

Re:mac /= server

[jellomizer]

How much koolaid do you need to drink even before you consider Mac OS Servers. I am a Mac Fan and I think using OS X for a server situation is idiotic.

It isn't that Mac OS X can't do the work, but you are not gaining much over any Unix Server, except for the fact you are stuck with Apple Hardware and an Apple OS. At least if you went with Sun Servers you have a Unix Server that is really designed to be a Server, with all the ugly complicated features that Jobs doesn't want to talk about.

I only saw OS X server as a server for the Mom and Pop shops mac fan. Where they can host a web page, and share some files, perhaps host email. Not a for a company large enough for IT Staff.

Re:mac /= server

[isorox]

But it didn't take long for his users to force a switch to an exchange hosted environment. The features just weren't there and the support or the tech resources to make corrections were far too time-consuming.

You sound like someone with exchange experience. I have a 700MB exchange account, I have a similar size gmail account.

Can you explain why I can search gmail in milliseconds, but exchange takes an hour? Is it just my organisation that is running some ancient version of exchange on crap hardware, or is it a fundamental problem with Exchange?

Can you also explain why it's unusable over a mid-latency link (say 200-600ms)?

Re:mac /= server

[colinrichardday]

I will tell you this... a Glassed in Server room full of Apple servers and Xsan are 800X more sexy looking than ANY other manufacturer.

Yep, this is Slashdot.

Re:mac /= server

[the_B0fh]

Why? Microsoft developers are stupider?

Re:mac /= server

[isorox]

Can you explain why I can search gmail in milliseconds, but exchange takes an hour?

Exchange is a bit crappy. Microsoft have for a long time been promising to one day replace the backend with a SQL database but so far they haven't managed it. That said, it's a bit unfair to compare Microsoft to Google when it comes to search.

I see, so hotmail is as slow as exchange?

I don't care who makes a product, especially one as simple as a mail server. I care about how it helps me do my job. the way my company has Exchange set up is a hindrance.

You didn't tackle this question either:

Can you also explain why it's unusable over a mid-latency link (say 200-600ms)?

Re:mac /= server

[hazem]

This reminds me...

Working for a university once, there was a dispute over whether our department should get to keep a small closet of a room during a department change. In order to make the room look busy and important, I built a "Beowulf" cluster of stacks of 486 machines. I made sure the disk activity lights and network switch were visible from the window in the door and then had the machines randomly requesting 1 kb files from each other. All the activity lights looked really impressive. And we got to keep the room for a year.

Looking back, I should feel lucky I didn't accidentally create skynet.

Re:mac /= server

[swalve]

I agree, something about the LED color choice was just a little different and made it look really cool. Of course, *I* am a size freak, and I get a tiny boner every time I walk past a glassed in server room at work. Two 8 foot racks full of blinking hard drives. I'm not allowed in, but they are probably 300 gb drives based on the age of the installation. (Replaced an entire room full of 18gb drives...) Hanging off a few Dell servers and some seriously fat pipes.

Re:mac /= server

[swalve]

When I was in school, they replaced the school's giant Big Iron mainframe (donated from someone) with... a 486. And the 486 blew the old thing away in speed and efficiency. The lights no longer dimmed when a classroom full of people tried to compile and run their bubble sorts.

Re:mac /= server

[swalve]

Seriously? Google has a little more processing power to throw at your search.

Re:mac /= server

[Thalagyrt]

Sounds like a poorly thought out deployment to me. I used to manage an Exchange deployment with eh, 40,000 users, maybe 50,000? Everything was nearly instantaneous. Hell, all of those clients hit the 16 backend mailbox servers (each with a few Dell MD1000s hanging off of them) through one client access server (they were active/passive failover) with only 4 gigs of RAM. Exchange's requirements aren't nearly as insane as people like to make them out to be, but like anything involving tons of data and many users, it's only going to be as good as your backing storage, which is your weakest link.

Re:mac /= server

[icebraining]

It's a shame people need all the features in Exchange. I use Sup, which since it indexes email using the Xapian engine, would probably take a few seconds to search through that size of emails.

It does take quite a bit of disk size (between 1 and 2 times the original data size), but what's a few hundred MBs on today's disk?

Re:mac /= server

[BitZtream]

Can you explain why I can search gmail in milliseconds, but exchange takes an hour?

Well, A) Your Exchange server is fucked up. I search a 16 GB exchange mailbox far faster than that, but yes far slower than Google because ...

B) Google indexes the ever living fuck out of your messages when they come in the door in order to serve you adds when you view them. Google sacrifices disk space for search speed to facilitate their business model, which is a lot different than your IT department, who isn't throwing ads at you.

Can you also explain why it's unusable over a mid-latency link (say 200-600ms)?

You or some other dumbass in your organization turned off caching in Outlook would be my guess. No reason why it doesn't work, since well, it works for lots of other people. See item A above.

Re:mac /= server

[StefanWiesendanger]

Well, we can search 10GB+ sized mailboxes within seconds here (Exchange Server 2010). So yes, it must be something with the particular setup in your organization.

Re:mac /= server

[cynyr]

is there a better way to search in outook other than select "all mail items" and then type some keywords in?

Also outlook cannot add labels to my mail at the server and is extremely clumsy to both add labels by hand, and use to folders.

In defense of outlook, there isn't a way to write a regex rule on gmail either... for example: all mails that match foo+*@gmail.com should have the label that matches that * applied. why do I want that? so i can actually use that feature of gmail usefully.

Re:mac /= server

[bryan1945]

So basically you're an example of all that is wrong with academia and business. Just making shit up so you could store a mop. Wonderful, I'm sure the students appreciated their money going to your fraud.

Re:mac /= server

[bryan1945]

You really had to ask that question? Heh.

Re:mac /= server

[hazem]

Students' money going to fraud? Well, I suppose it cost about $10 in electricity to keep it going over the summer.

We (Engineering/CS school) needed the room but we just didn't have hardware to go in it a the time. If it looked unused, it was going to be given over to the English department. So I made it look used while the vultures were circling.

After a couple months (and the fiscal year started and we had extra money in the budget) finally able to use it as intended; as a "special projects" room for senior CS student projects, so I suspect the students actually did appreciate my "fraud". It was a small room, perfect for those students to work on their projects in a quiet place.

So I don't know about being an example of what's wrong... I was doing what was best for the paying students I was responsible for serving. Sometimes being able to do a good job requires being able to navigate the bureaucracy you find yourself in.

As a Mac admin, I agree.

[DarkVader]

I've played with it for a few days now, and I absolutely agree. I'm not planning on upgrading any of my customers at this point, and I'm considering my options for replacements in environments where I can't maintain Snow Leopard Server indefinitely. I think it's likely to be relegated to calendar server duty, and I'm going to move mail, web, and FTP to some variety of Linux.

I'm really not happy with Apple about Lion - it just doesn't feel like an upgrade to me, and server is even worse. I don't like seeing the best operating system there is backsliding like this.

Re:As a Mac admin, I agree.

[TooMuchToDo]

We run a mixed OS X/Windows 7 environment. We use AD/Open Directory, but mail is done by Google Apps (as well as calendaring, etc), DHCP/DNS/etc. is done by network gear. Is Lion great? Meh. With email/calendar outsourced, the only thing we need it to do is directory services, software updates, etc., which it does fine.

Re:As a Mac admin, I agree.

[vijayiyer]

Go here to download Server Admin, and gain back all of the old functionality:

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1419

Re:As a Mac admin, I agree.

[TheRaven64]

I think it's likely to be relegated to calendar server duty, and I'm going to move mail, web, and FTP to some variety of Linux.

You don't have to keep the Mac around for serving calendars. Apple open sourced the server and you can run it on your favourite *NIX flavour.

Re:As a Mac admin, I agree.

[earls]

What email client do you use on OSX? I see Google doesn't make Apps Sync for Outlook 2011 yet.

Re:As a Mac admin, I agree.

[Anonymous Coward]

Go here to download Server Admin, and gain back all of the old functionality

From TFA:

"Once you locate and download the Server Admin tool, experienced Mac OS X Server administrators will notice it's a much thinner tool than it used to be. Roughly half the services that used to be there are missing. Most user-based services, such as file sharing, calendaring, and Web services, have been moved to the simple Server application. Others, such as QuickTime Streaming Server, have been completely removed."

Re:As a Mac admin, I agree.

[everyplace]

Fantastic find. Makes a lot of sense, and basically means the app that ships with 10.7 server is an upgrade for the "basic" server administration app if you use the simple 10.6 configuration, but that all of the underlying services we know and love continue to exist, and just need a different app to admin them. This is no different than how it worked with 10.6, except now the apps don't come with the OS.

Re:As a Mac admin, I agree.

[Lumpy]

"but mail is done by Google Apps (as well as calendaring, etc),"

Read and you will receive the info he already told you.

Their Email client is called a web browser.

Re:As a Mac admin, I agree.

[TooMuchToDo]

This. Everyone uses Chrome. IT policy is to use the web browser for email, calendaring, etc. You *can* use Outlook if you prefer, but it's IMAP only, and calendaring is through the web still. Works like a fucking champ.

Re:As a Mac admin, I agree.

[DarkVader]

Yeah, I know about that.

It's not really ready for production server use yet:

Milestone: Linux Port

No date set

Milestone with the goal of a functional (to approximately whatever the current level of functionality is) server on some version of Linux.

This is intentionally vague; the point is to get a server running on something other than Mac OS, which should make future portability work a bit simpler by identifying and reducing the Mac OS dependancies.

Re:As a Mac admin, I agree.

[PopeRatzo]

From TFA:

"Once you locate and download the Server Admin tool, experienced Mac OS X Server administrators will notice it's a much thinner tool than it used to be. Roughly half the services that used to be there are missing. Most user-based services, such as file sharing, calendaring, and Web services, have been moved to the simple Server application. Others, such as QuickTime Streaming Server, have been completely removed."

Except, as the above user explained,

"From TFA:

"Once you locate and download the Server Admin tool, experienced Mac OS X Server administrators will notice it's a much thinner tool than it used to be. Roughly half the services that used to be there are missing. Most user-based services, such as file sharing, calendaring, and Web services, have been moved to the simple Server application. Others, such as QuickTime Streaming Server, have been completely removed."

So it is not just "needing a different app". It is quite different.

Re:As a Mac admin, I agree.

[DrgnDancer]

I think it's likely to be relegated to calendar server duty, and I'm going to move mail, web, and FTP to some variety of Linux.

I'm confused as to why based on this article. It sounds to me as if everything is still there, but some of it has to be command line configured like it would in Linux. I generally think that for servers command line and text file configuration are much preferred anyway, and it's the way you'd have to do it in Linux. I was reading the whole article trying to find out what the problems are. The installation issues sounded mildly annoying, but usually with a new server OS deployment I'm going to build one then image it anyway, so not a huge deal. There's still a lot more GUI tools than you typically get with a Linux server if that's your thing, and the group policy capabilities sound like a big step in the right direct.

If anything, assuming that your IT department is competent, this article seems to be complaining from the wrong point of view. It sounds like Lion Server might kinda suck for a SoHo type setup where the users and the admins are the same people, no one is really an expert, and there are minimal resources for things like imaging and deployment; but for an enterprise IT shop these changes shouldn't have much impact. I won't be rushing out to buy it, but to be honest I've never used Mac servers. I like them as clients, but I'd just as soon make the back end Linux.

Re:As a Mac admin, I agree.

[EccentricAnomaly]

I always hated OS X Server because I was brought up on the old UNIX boxes and I liked to do everything on the command line... but the #@$@#$ GUIs in OS X Server would clobber all of my config files (and they were not well documented either). I'm very glad to see OS X server go back to the command line and be more like Linux.

Re:As a Mac admin, I agree.

[medcalf]

Actually, I don't know why you'd want to use the admin tools anyway for app configuration, service monitoring and the like. They've always been terrible tools, mainly in that they are very inflexible, unless you're doing vanilla admin work. Anything unusual and you're back to the app config files anyway. And since the Apple-supplied versions of the server apps are open source, but generally out of date, you're usually better off with Mac Ports and command line based administration. The exception is generally user permissions through the directory, where most of the time it's easier to use the GUI. But for the services side of things, I wouldn't bother with Apple's tools.

Re:As a Mac admin, I agree.

[DrgnDancer]

You could just grab the installers from the app store on a Lion client and burn them to a CD, or stick them on an internal server. For most places I've worked that would fall within the bounds of acceptable. Then create one master "Mac Sever" image file from a hardened vanilla setup, and just clone the rest of the batch with a fully patched and updated OS. The you can config the specific services needed on the individual systems that will provide them.

Re:As a Mac admin, I agree.

[capedgirardeau]

I agree 100%. My policy is no one allowed to touch the server admin stuff for Apache as every time the server admin app is open and "Web" is selected it will f'ing re-write every vhost file i have and re-order and re-number them.

WTF.

Apple is awful for a server environment in anything other than a SOHO setting.

Re:As a Mac admin, I agree.

[Anonymous Coward]

As an ex-Mac admin, I have to disagree.

He's trying to talk about IT, yet starts off talking about the old Server Prefs. The only people that really use Server Prefs are SOHO users that can not afford the time/knowledge to manage a server properly. I'm not knocking OSX Server or Server Prefs in that environment, it works well there, but those are not in the realm of "IT Administrators".

Furthermore he laments the lack of a GUI for DHCP, DNS, MySQL/Postgres, etc... Good riddance. The GUI configurations were buggy and limiting. I can't count the number of times I had to make manual edits to files (adding SVN to Apache was the most infuriating) only to have Apple decide that's not what I really wanted the next time someone accidentally saves through the GUI (which you can't easily stop it from writing (though still letting it perform all the read functionality)). Then there was DHCP that automatically broadcasts on all interfaces, you can only disable interfaces from the command line, and then the GUI would just tell you DHCP wasn't running.

His complaint about a lack of install media is also irrelevant in the IT world. You install it once, perform the basic configurations for your site, then create an image of the boot disk. Then you simply burn that image on all your hosts. For a server environment you shouldn't be doing anything but a clean install anyway. If you have multiple server profiles, you simply create additional images for each profile. It's not rocket science.

The only reason I haven't updated my personal server to Lion is my Mini is a CoreSolo and I haven't gotten confirmation of if the imaging trick (e.g. install on my MBP, create an image, then image it to the Mini) works for unsupported hardware like it did with putting Leopard on G4s.

Re:As a Mac admin, I agree.

[earls]

Thanks, but that technically didn't tell me anything. Just because a company use Google Apps doesn't mean they're definitely using Gmail as the client.

We're on Google Apps, but everyone prefers to use Outlook, much to my chagrin.

I provisioned a Macbook Air this morning with Outlook but had to set it up for IMAP. What I was coyly asking was whether or not he was using IMAP or had another [desktop client] solution.

Re:As a Mac admin, I agree.

[earls]

I want to work here.

Re:As a Mac admin, I agree.

[TooMuchToDo]

Apologies, I should've been specific. Our IT policy is "Web browser for all Google Apps services, Outlook users are on their own".

Re:As a Mac admin, I agree.

[mswhippingboy]

I don't like seeing the best operating system there is backsliding like this.

Backsliding is the only option because it was "perfect" before. It was perfect because it was from Apple and everything Apple does is perfect.

Re:As a Mac admin, I agree.

[DarkVader]

For Linux, I'm a big fan of Webmin, I've been using it for many years now as a Linux server admin tool, I even use it for a few things on Mac OS X Server.

For some things, the command line is ok, but I really prefer a well-designed GUI. The 10.6 admin tools weren't amazing, but nearly good enough - the 10.7 tools are significantly less powerful, and for some things the interface is just absolutely painful.

You mention the IT department - in my case, I am the IT department - for multiple small/medium size companies. Most of them are either all-Mac or mostly-Mac shops, including travel, law offices, medical practices, ad agencies, even retail. I'm not sure what size an all-Mac shop would need to be to actually need a full time IT person - maybe a thousand users?

Re:As a Mac admin, I agree.

[BitZtream]

Apple Mail?

Mail.app + iCal.app + Address Book.app + something I'm missing I'm sure give you pretty much all the functionality of Outlook including the ability to use plugins (although plugins are unofficial)

That combination with Google Apps works great since both Google and Apple use standard protocols for everything and though they are seperate apps they integrate well with each other.

Re:As a Mac admin, I agree.

[BitZtream]

Yea, making things harder to use is always the right thing to do.

Its rather retarded to think this is a good thing, I for the life of me can't understand why people prefer command line to GUI.

I completely understand preferring command line to SHITTY GUI, which is what it was, but you're just an idiot if you think the command line is better.

Not sure about what you're expecting from the config files as far as documentation, its not like they are different in OSX than say ... any other OS ... considering the servers are all standard OSS software anyway. You've got the same documentation in OSX as you do in Linux.

Re:As a Mac admin, I agree.

[cynyr]

Does that combination allow me to accept meeting invites from other people in other companies that use outlook/exchange?

Re:As a Mac admin, I agree.

[bryan1945]

I can't wait til Google starts charging for their services, at which point /. will go ballistic. I'm guessing 3rd quarter 2012. (Maybe that the reason for whole Mayan prophecy?)

Re:As a Mac admin, I agree.

[TooMuchToDo]

We already pay for Google Apps ($50/user/year) which is CHEAP compared to time wasted dealing with internal mail servers, etc.

There are more options than this, no?

[damn_registrars]

The summary mentions only two choices for IT professionals:

• Upgrade to Lion
• Switch to Windows server

I can easily think of two more:

• Stay with what you have
• Switch to a non-windows, non-MacOS option

I have not heard any reason why a currently working installation of OS X would suddenly stop working altogether just because the owner did not upgrade. Windows people have seen this before; there are plenty of people still running Windows XP even though two newer version of the same have been released since.

Re:There are more options than this, no?

[CannonballHead]

Stay with what you have

How long does Apple continue supporting OS releases? (I have heard it's shorter than MS, but I'm actually pretty ignorant...)

Re:There are more options than this, no?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Unless they've changed stances recently, Apple does not support running macs with any OS version earlier than the one they shipped with. They don't specifically try to stop you; but they make no effort to be particularly helpful about it. Outside of tiny shops, that pretty much squashes the "Well, we just won't upgrade" plan. People still routinely run XP because it is still quite easy to buy brand new hardware with full, vendor supported, XP compatibility.

Anywhere large enough that "IT" is a mass noun will have serious trouble not upgrading if they can't get new hardware...

Re:There are more options than this, no?

[TheRaven64]

Switching to Windows seems particularly stupid. Most of the server stuff in OS X server is open source, only the admin GUIs are proprietary. It's relatively painless to migrate to FreeBSD - you can just copy the config files across for the most part.

Re:There are more options than this, no?

[damn_registrars]

Unless they've changed stances recently, Apple does not support running macs with any OS version earlier than the one they shipped with. They don't specifically try to stop you; but they make no effort to be particularly helpful about it. Outside of tiny shops, that pretty much squashes the "Well, we just won't upgrade" plan. People still routinely run XP because it is still quite easy to buy brand new hardware with full, vendor supported, XP compatibility.

Are Apple shops really that dependent on Apple for support? PC users, and shops that have large implementations of PCs running something other than Mac OS X, have become accustomed to finding support places other than their OS provider.

In other words, the software problems that people are having with PCs have already been seen by other PC users. It seems unlikely that this is distinctly not the case with OS X users. If the business is capable of running well with a current version of OS X (or any other OS for that matter) and they don't like what is next in the pipeline, then why should they feel forced into it?

And if the server is the question, why would they need to upgrade their server OS immediately? A well-configured server shouldn't even need to reboot more than once or twice a year, it certainly shouldn't need to have an OS upgrade every time the vendor releases something new.

Re:There are more options than this, no?

[_xeno_]

Who knows? They don't say.

No, seriously, I've gone looking for this information and wasn't able to find it. The best answer appears to be they will support the current version and the previous version, and that's it.

If someone has better information than that, I'd love to have it, but it makes suggesting a Mac OS X-based solution a bit difficult when I can't give a solid number on how long the platform will receive security updates.

Re:There are more options than this, no?

[UnknowingFool]

Apple does not support running macs with any OS version earlier than the one they shipped with.

Does anyone? I mean Dell won't support you running XP on a machine that they installed Vista or Win 7 even if the machine runs it. I remember that there was alot of complaining that consumers had to pay for downgrade rights to XP when Vista came out. For enterprises, they normally have separate agreements with MS for support and Dell doesn't even install Windows on the machine anyway.

Re:There are more options than this, no?

[Nephster]

How long does Apple continue supporting OS releases? (I have heard it's shorter than MS, but I'm actually pretty ignorant...)

Apple only offers security and bugfix support for its current release and the one before it. So, 10.4 was deprecated when 10.6 came out, and now that 10.7 is released, 10.5 is deprecated.

Re:There are more options than this, no?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

When I say "Does not support" I don't mean "Cry, cry, Apple's helpdesk monkeys won't talk to me because I installed version y OS on a version z computer!!!"

I mean, When Apple releases a new hardware model, they release a slightly different spin of the OSX installer that includes drivers, firmware, etc. for the new hardware platform. If the hardware platform drivers for your platform were released in conjunction with, say, 10.6, Apple will not bother to release a platform support package for running 10.5 on that hardware.

That's the difference: With Windows, MS does bundle a variety of drivers-that-are-commonly-used with their install media, in order to improve the odds of things Just Working; but the OEM you purchased the computer from, or potentially the OEM they purchased the chips from, are the actual providers of the drivers, and will have them available for whatever platforms they support. Apple doesn't do that. Their install media come equipped with all drivers for supported models as of the OS release. If you wish to run an OS that was released before a given piece of hardware, the drivers won't be included in that OS. If you are lucky, you might be able to bodge drivers taken from a later OSX release into working on an earlier one. If not, too bad.

Re:There are more options than this, no?

[hawguy]

I have not heard any reason why a currently working installation of OS X would suddenly stop working altogether just because the owner did not upgrade. Windows people have seen this before; there are plenty of people still running Windows XP even though two newer version of the same have been released since.

Apple doesn't seem to announce end-of-support dates for their operating systems (at least they don't make it easy to find), but many IT departments aren't allowed to run unsupported software because they have a regulatory requirement to keep the software up to date with security patches.

So sure, Keeping Leopard or Snow Leopard is a short-term fix, but they are only going to be a viable solution for as long as Apple continues supporting them.

Re:There are more options than this, no?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Pretty much any manufacturer with an "enterprise" line does. Dell's most recent desktop and laptop models ship with 7; but support back to XP, HP does the same. The only ones that are a little patchy are models that officially support XP-64bit or Linux. Consumer lines, on the other hand, generally offer no official support for earlier versions.

Beyond that, it matters a lot less if your random PC OEM supports XP: basically every component in the system(with the possible exception of some proprietary BIOS-flasher) is just a standard chip from one of the OEMs. So long as they support XP it won't be 'Official'; but it will almost certainly work.

Apple both doesn't support and pretty much none of the OEMs who make the guts of Apple systems offer independent OSX driver support for any OSX versions, much less earlier ones. If you want to run Windows, or Linux, you can get 3rd-party driver support from the OEMs; but not for OSX. Only makers of 3rd-party peripherals release OSX drivers of their own. For the internal stuff, it's Apple or nothing.

Re:There are more options than this, no?

[hawguy]

How long does Apple continue supporting OS releases? (I have heard it's shorter than MS, but I'm actually pretty ignorant...)

Longer than the average Linux distro (which in most cases is a couple of months if that).

Ubuntu releases are supported for 18 months. Ubuntu LTS (Long Term Support) releases are supported for 3 years on the desktop, and 5 years on the server.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases

Re:There are more options than this, no?

[repetty]

How long does Apple continue supporting OS releases? (I have heard it's shorter than MS, but I'm actually pretty ignorant...)

I have observed that since OS X came out ten years ago, Apple supports the most recent two versions of their OS for security issues. The current version gets their maximum attention, though.

I've even seen them reach back two 10.x versions to address severe security problems.

Long term support is where open source options can spank proprietary ones, not that they often do. (IE: Go with RedHat/CentOS Enterprise and not Fedora.)

It's weird to propose Windows as an alternative to Mac OS X server deployments since other Unix/Linux options are MUCH more closely related. Going to Windows from the Mac instead Linux seems really, really left-field to me.

Re:There are more options than this, no?

[Anonymous Coward]

I hear that RedHat is just now retiring RHEL 4 which came out in 2005. And RHEL 3 ended last year.

I would say that 6 years is a pretty good support time.

Apparently you do not normally deal with enterprise Linux distros.

Re:There are more options than this, no?

[Stupendoussteve]

And if you're not going to use the admin GUIs anyway, there's really no reason to switch to anything. The article is complaining about changes in the admin GUI, if you are competent enough to configure the thing through the command line, you're not losing any functionality.

Re:There are more options than this, no?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

My point was that, except for very tiny shops, the need to refresh hardware/replace failed systems/add new seats/etc. means that anybody who cannot downgrade won't have very long before they either have to run a heterogeneous environment or upgrade. Since macs cannot be very practically downgraded, the hypothetical entity large enough to have "IT" as a department will either be scrounging or upgrading in comparatively short order unless their luck with hardware is quite good.

Re:There are more options than this, no?

[datapharmer]

(IE: Go with RedHat/CentOS Enterprise and not Fedora.)

In other news, go for stable releases instead of using nightly builds for increased reliability.

Re:There are more options than this, no?

[recharged95]

If it's more complex and requires more technical skill or dedication to maintain it, it sure says for that effort: why not just go Linux, since it's pretty much the same posix compliant *nix system.

Re:There are more options than this, no?

[EXrider]

I can tell you from experience, AFP support in 2003 server BLEW. We used it briefly after upgrading from a previous NT4 AFP server that worked great, we switched over to OS X server after that. I haven't tried AFP in 2008 server, and frankly I don't feel like dealing with 2TB of HFS+ to NTFS filename incompatibilities.

Linux, BSD or Solaris would make a much more suitable replacement, but you'd still lose all of your HFS ACL's.

Re:There are more options than this, no?

[aztracker1]

That's funny... Apple has a history of dropping hardware support at under two years, and has had no problems in upgrades breaking compatibility. A lot of programs from the early 32-bit windows APIs still work 12+ years later. That's simply unheard of. As to server support, they tend to support for 5+ years, then drop off... which is still better than most commercial support options.

Is it better than say a RedHat support contract, I couldn't say, most of my Linux experience has been without any support contract. I can say that MS support for their OS tends to be a bit better than Apple.

Re:There are more options than this, no?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple does not support running macs with any OS version earlier than the one they shipped with.

Does anyone? I mean Dell won't support you running XP on a machine that they installed Vista or Win 7 even if the machine runs it. I remember that there was alot of complaining that consumers had to pay for downgrade rights to XP when Vista came out. For enterprises, they normally have separate agreements with MS for support and Dell doesn't even install Windows on the machine anyway.

Actually, we just bought some new Dell desktops and Lenovo laptops. We have custom in-house applications that require XP, and won't work properly in a virtualized environment. Both companies were more than happy to ship out XP media for the machines (Since we purchased 7 Professional) complete with full drivers both on the media and online. They also fully support XP through their support centers.

Re:There are more options than this, no?

[aztracker1]

I have to agree here.. some of the *BSD options would be a pretty decent fit IMHO, and any Linux distro will be a closer match than windows. If you don't need Exchange, or have .Net based server applications (though Mono is okay), then you really don't need Windows server. Personally, I like Windows well enough but the presentation of it as the most acceptable option for IT is somewhat baffling.

Re:There are more options than this, no?

[MindStalker]

Yes, but its seems to be a sign of an eventually end of life for OS X server. This would be like Microsoft releasing XP as a replacement for 2000 and saying there wouldn't be a 2003 server released. Of course Apple may backtrack and add the true server features for additional money.

Re:There are more options than this, no?

[jimicus]

IIRC 10.4 hadn't had much in the way of updates for some time before 10.6 was released.

Re:There are more options than this, no?

[stewbacca]

Or what I think is kinda cool is upgrade any computer you have to Lion Server and keep your Snow Leopard Server hardware. Then, in Lion Server, download Server Admin, connect to both servers, and you get ALL services provided by both Lion and Snow Leopard in one GUI (twirl down the Lion Server and you see the Lion services in Server Admin, and twirl down the Snow Leopard Server and you see even more). Use your meager Lion server hardware for fun stuff like Server and Profile Manager, and your Snow Leopard server for all the heavy lifting (and administering Snow Leopard clients).

Lion Server is $50. It can't be THAT bad, especially if you keep at least one Snow Leopard Server running until they smooth out the transition.

Re:There are more options than this, no?

[TrancePhreak]

Since 10.7 was released last week, you can't really say that 10.5 will be supported. In a month or two we may know the answer.

Re:There are more options than this, no?

[Bert64]

Migrating to another unix is likely to be a lot easier than migrating to windows... You will generally be running much the same software, and a lot of the configuration will be similar (tho without the gui tools).

Re:There are more options than this, no?

[alcourt]

Oh, you mean like HP-UX, Solaris and RHEL?

Solaris had a long standing published support policy. By that policy, Solaris 9 should still be supported until two years after Solaris 11 ships. That got summarily changed.

I lost track of how many times Red Hat and HP sent changed dates on their enterprise OS end of support dates. "For the next year" isn't good enough when I've seen vendors suddenly change their mind and announce EoSL within eighteen months. In a large center, it can take longer than that to migrate with no end user impact.

Some application vendors are even worse.

Re:There are more options than this, no?

[TheRaven64]

And if you're not going to use the admin GUIs anyway, there's really no reason to switch to anything

Well, I can think of three. FreeBSD performs better than XNU on the same hardware - several orders of magnitude better in anything that makes heavy use of pthread mutexes (at least in 10.6). OS X costs money per license, so if you're not using anything specific to the platform, there's no real reason to pay for it. And OS X only runs on Apple hardware, which is somewhat lacking in the server space. You can pick up a 1U server with RAID and a redundant PSU for about £200. In Apple-land, that buys you half a Mac Mini, with one disk and one PSU.

Re:There are more options than this, no?

[BitZtream]

Well, I can think of three. FreeBSD performs better than XNU on the same hardware - several orders of magnitude better in anything that makes heavy use of pthread mutexes (at least in 10.6).

If you're using pthreads in 10.6, you're doing it wrong. You should be using GCD related primatives, which will run circles around pthreads.

You can pick up a 1U server with RAID and a redundant PSU for about £200. In Apple-land, that buys you half a Mac Mini, with one disk and one PSU.

For $400? I'd put my data on the half a mac mini will before I'd put any data on a 1U server with raid and redundant PSU for that price. It can not possibly be quality hardware for that rate. That thing will be an over heating death trap with 'redundantly unstable power supplies'

Re:There are more options than this, no?

[BitZtream]

why not just go Linux, since it's pretty much the same posix compliant *nix system.

Except its not.

Linux is not posix compliant, a few distros are close, but those cost you as much as an OSX box.

Linux is not UNIX, it never will be, it doesn't want to be. It intentionally goes against the UNIX standard for its own reasons (not saying good or bad, its just not trying to be UNIX compliant). OSX is a certified UNIX, one of the few operating systems left that can claim that status. Certainly not the only one though, pretty much all the real server OSes are UNIX compliant.

And FreeBSD is far more like OSX than Linux will ever be ... since you know, OSX is based a great deal on the FBSD 4.x user land, both of which are doing their absolute best to get away from GNU/GPL based software as quickly as possible.

You really don't know much about any of the things you mentioned do you?

Re:There are more options than this, no?

[sjames]

I have never seen a Windows install just work. It generally ends up in sneakernetting a network driver in so the rest can be downloaded and installed.

Re:There are more options than this, no?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I've seen a few, mostly when trying out Win7 on ~5year old practically-an-Intel-reference-design-except-for-the-bcm57xx-that-everybody-was-using-in-those-days corporate desktop boxes; but it is rare.

My point was just that, while MS does provide a smattering of common drivers as a convenience feature, they are not your sole, or even primary, source of drivers, nor do they position themselves as such. What you find on the install disk is essentially irrelevant to whether it will end up working or not. With OSX, by contrast, a given install disk should support all non-deprecated mac models that started shipping before the install disk was finalized; but that is your first and last source of driver support(with the exception of 3rd party peripherals, supported by their manufacturers, and Nvidia CUDA drivers). Even when a given chipmaker(intel or broadcom, for instance) almost certainly provided much of the code went into the driver in Apple's OS release, their own driver download pages won't include any OSX drivers. I don't know whether this is a function of vendor indifference or Apple's express preference; but it is the case: even when drivers are available in the kernel.org mainline, or via Windows update, respectively, outfits like intel will still have driver packages for those platforms. For OSX, however, even when a given chip is in one or more generations of macs, there will be no mention of it on vendor support pages.

Re:There are more options than this, no?

[TheRaven64]

If you're using pthreads in 10.6, you're doing it wrong. You should be using GCD related primatives, which will run circles around pthreads.

Actually, no they won't. The 'super magic fast' synchronisation primitives that GCD uses have exactly the same performance characteristics as FreeBSD (or glibc) mutexes. They just seem fast on OS X because the pthread versions always block in the kernel and have an insanely high overhead (4 threads contending, run time increases by a factor of 100). And, with the exception of Apache, none of the other programs that you might run on a Mac server have been rewritten to use GCD.

Re:There are more options than this, no?

[kestasjk]

I got the impression that the problem with Lion was the lack of GUI tools for doing server administration tasks. If you're comfortable with Linux administration that wouldn't be a problem for you anyway, so you would stay with Lion, and if you need GUI tools for administration and Apple doesn't provide it Windows is probably going to be the second choice.

(I say this as an enthusiastic user of both Linux and Windows on the server)

Re:There are more options than this, no?

[sjames]

It is a fair point. There can be no download and sneakernetting for Mac if there is nowhere to download from.

John Rizzo

[daktari]

John Rizzo, author of "Mac OS X Lion Server for Dummies"

Re:John Rizzo

[rbrausse]

it is (arguable) harder to write useful texts for rookies without background knowledge about the topic

It's not for Enterprise IT

[macshome]

Mac OS X Server before it, and now OS X Lion Server aren't intended for enterprise IT, and haven't been for a while. Apple has been working the word enterprise out of the marketing pages for a while now.

Indeed, the current blurb says this on apple.com: "OS X Lion Server gives you everything you need to provide workgroup and Internet services.".

For workgroup and SMB sized applications it's pretty nice, but a bit of a quandary when you hit the big leagues.

I put all my thoughts on it in my review on AFP548.com: http://www.afp548.com/article.php?story=lion-server-review

The real place in enterprise for the Mac has been in on the client side for quite some time now.

Re:It's not for Enterprise IT

[Lumpy]

"For workgroup and SMB sized applications it's pretty nice, but a bit of a quandary when you hit the big leagues."

when you hit that point you use a real Unix, and it runs really nice on their sexy hardware!

Re:It's not for Enterprise IT

[cHiphead]

Xserve with Lights-out management, Open Directory Services, Netboot services, Mail Server, Wiki Services, X-SAN(!), Apple Quad Port Fibre card, numerous supports 12+TB raid devices, supported tape autoload devices, Remote Desktop centralized management tool with scripting support for inventory/application installation/remote control, built in failover capabilities for some services... All the makings of an Enterprise class infrastructure. Apple fucked anyone who (by their own choice or the choice of 'management') put any serious investment into infrastructure oriented around the Xserve. Poor GoDaddy built their entire cloud hosting solution based on the Xserve (I wonder if that investment was among the soured investments that ended up convincing GD's principals and investors to sell the company).

Apple had a strong solution with their Xserve offering, but, as usual, they completely dropped the ball and forgot about the back room IT folks again in preference for some 'ohhhh shiny' toys and tools with unbelievably reduced functionality. (Also see Final Cut Pro X, coinciding with an immediate discontinue of Final Cut Studio upon release) These days, Apple feels like its trapped itself into an internet bubble atmosphere where they only want to do the 'cool' stuff but nobody wants to do actual hard work.

Re:It's not for Enterprise IT

[ajo_arctus]

Poor GoDaddy built their entire cloud hosting solution based on the Xserve (I wonder if that investment was among the soured investments that ended up convincing GD's principals and investors to sell the company).

Don't be silly, investors don't care one jot about the specific details of the IT infrastructure, they just care that it works and that it 'sounds' credible/cool/high-tech when people talk about it. In their heads, they imagine that it's a trivial task to exchange a rack of ageing server made by company A with a single blade server from company B. They know it just requires a few hundred thousand dollars and a little bit of time. And they're right, because people like us do worry about the specifics and we take great pride in making sure that the IT stuff we work on does work.

They [Apple], completely dropped the ball and forgot about the back room IT folks again

Here's my take on this sentiment: Apple have limited resources (albeit for a given definition of 'limited') and they need to slice their time in the way that they feel gives them the best shot at achieving what they want to do. If you look back at Apple's (and Steve Jobs' in particular) vision, it's never been about enterprise. Even Next wasn't really about enterprise, despite everything. In my mind, Apple are about making computers work for everyone. iCloud is far more important to Apple than enterprise -- we (the enterprise) can look after ourselves -- we don't need Apple's vision to keep our workhorse servers running mission critical apps. Consumers, however, are going to love the way that iCloud lets them save a document on one computer/device, and instantly have it available on all of their computers/devices. That's a big change, and IMHO, Apple are right to shift their focus away from the enterprise/niche pro markets and in to this area.

Of course, I might feel differently if I worked for cable TV using FCP day in day out, or if I had a room full of Xserve's. I'd probably be a bit annoyed too, but I'd like to think not -- that I can adapt without too much whining or hand wringing, just like Apple can.

Re:It's not for Enterprise IT

[Bengie]

Apple charges so little for their OS because they price gouge on their hardware.

Buying their hardware and not using their OS is like throwing money in the wind.

Unix Knowledge

[Anonymous Coward]

"Requires a greater degree of technical ability" omg, the command line, NOOOOOooooooooooo!

Re:Unix Knowledge

[Truekaiser]

heh that's what i was thinking any it staff above the mcse gofer, entry level would not only know how to use the command line. but be good enough in it that they would be able to handle the new server.

learn how to use the command line

[Anonymous Coward]

Or there is another option. Learn how do to things without a pretty gui helping you.

Re:learn how to use the command line

[Lumpy]

But you will put all the MCSE's out of work...

Re:learn how to use the command line

[h4rr4r]

A GUI is not progress. It is the opposite. For any automated/scripted functionality or generally complicated task the CLI will be much faster.

Re:learn how to use the command line

[kabloom]

The truth is that many system administrators prefer the command line, because you can come up with a bunch of repeatable commands that can be put into a script file and replayed on lots of machines, and because you can more efficiently work with a command-line over a remote access protocol like SSH (becuase less data needs to be sent across the network). Of course, the GP's attitude doesn't really help people appreciate the power and utility of the command line, and I certainly admit that crippling or removing the GUI tools could be a hard sell for some of MacOS X's intended audience if they don't have an appreciation of the command line.

Re:learn how to use the command line

[Bob the Super Hamste]

You grow your own food, I just go wandering through the forest buck naked and eat the random berries, nuts, and leaves I find. I also just use rocks and sticks to kill my own food and then chow down no need for fire here, since you know progress is overrated.

In reality just because something is new or shiny doesn't necessarily make it better.

Re:learn how to use the command line

[nabsltd]

The truth is that many system administrators prefer the command line, because you can come up with a bunch of repeatable commands that can be put into a script file and replayed on lots of machines

The truth is that most real-world system administrators prefer things like Group Policy, that allows you to easily configure which machines or users get which custom configuration without having to write insanely complicated scripts.

Re:learn how to use the command line

[amicusNYCL]

For any automated/scripted functionality or generally complicated task the CLI will be much faster.

Assuming you already know how to do it. One of the things that GUIs help with is context, on one screen you can see all of the relevant options for what you're doing, there can be links to help or documentation about what you're looking at, etc. For a person going into a complicated task with little knowledge about how to complete the task, a CLI is going to be much slower because of the extra research time needed to figure out what your options even are, let alone how to use everything. A well-designed GUI will be able to show you exactly what you have to work with. Like anything else with software, a GUI is only as good as the person who designed it.

Re:learn how to use the command line

[amicusNYCL]

In reality just because something is new or shiny doesn't necessarily make it better.

I'm pretty sure that's exactly the point of the story with the new version of OSX removing the GUI tools.

Of course, it's very difficult to argue that a GUI is not an improvement over a command line in terms of making it easy for a person to interface with a computer. A GUI obviously has superior capabilities (in fact, your GUI can even have a command line), but like I said above, the GUI is only as good as the designer. There's nothing inherently bad about GUIs, only GUI designers.

Re:learn how to use the command line

[omnichad]

You use your fancy opposable thumbs and upright walking. I get by just fine with gills and fins, eating whatever plant material floats my way.

Re:learn how to use the command line

[medcalf]

Slower, probably. But the problem is that server applications are generally very configurable, and GUIs are not good at very complex configurations. As a result, it's not uncommon for configuration GUIs to be terrible at handling the complexity generally available to server apps. You could make a good argument that this means that server apps should be made less complex/less configurable, but I've never seen a good argument that GUIs are better for configuring complex server apps. Lower learning curve, sure. But far, far less flexible.

Re:learn how to use the command line

[amicusNYCL]

GUIs are not good at very complex configurations

That's not true. What's true is that GUI designers are so far not very good at creating usable GUIs for complex tasks. It's not the fault of the buttons or dropdowns or tabs, it's the fault of the guy who thought those were the solution (or didn't understand the problem).

Re:learn how to use the command line

[colinrichardday]

Assuming you already know how to do it.

If you are an IT person configuring a server, already knowing how to do it is a good idea.

Re:learn how to use the command line

[amicusNYCL]

How about an easy to use interface that makes your highly expressive language easier to use? Why do you think "highly expressive language" and "GUI" (or whatever inherently-biased term you prefer) are mutually-exclusive? Are you trying to argue that the current crop of touch interfaces in iOS and Android are actually a regression in the way that people interact with computers? If you're looking for a saved file, isn't it pretty obvious and intuitive to point at the icon and touch it versus looking up the only syntax for a file descriptor that your software understands, and then verifying the path is correct? Can't we say that it represents progress when we are able to simply point at a file and say "that one", and have the GUI fill in the details?

Here's a question: when you're writing up a design document for the piece of custom software that your customer wants to build, do you stop at the functionality and just promise them a command-line application? What if they ask for a GUI? Are you going to try and argue that your software is so pure that a GUI would only make it worse, or would you take up the challenge to design and produce an interface that is as brilliant as your flawless algorithms?

Re:learn how to use the command line

[fyngyrz]

That's just flagrant over-complication. I just sit here in a volcanic vent, living off environmental hydrogen sulfide. No gills, no fins, no mobility, yet I get the job done. Now *that* is server administration.

Re:learn how to use the command line

[PhrstBrn]

Group Policy is a framework, not an interface. Group Policy is nice because of the architecture, not because of it's interface.

Re:learn how to use the command line

[h4rr4r]

Oh wow ,a real shell only decades after everyone else, amazing.

Re:learn how to use the command line

[amicusNYCL]

Hmm. You've never had to learn on the job, huh? Everything you've ever needed to know was taught in school?

What about new software?

Re:learn how to use the command line

[amicusNYCL]

Never seen such a beast. If you find one, let me know.

How about any IDE that includes built-in help for the language you're developing in, or something like Intellisense? Something that basic is a huge help between writing code on a command line and doing it in a development environment. I feel like you're trying to argue that Notepad is the pinnacle of a text editor, because you should already know how to do whatever you're sitting down to do and don't need any reference documentation or other resources.

Re:learn how to use the command line

[colinrichardday]

If you don't know the software, how much is using a GUI going to help?

Re:learn how to use the command line

[WorBlux]

man , read the example config, or god forbid pick up a book and read, instead of half-assing it with a GUI that give you just enough "context" to get into trouble..

Re:learn how to use the command line

[WorBlux]

A GUI tries to make things intuitive, a CLI lays the logic bare in plain text. Some things aren't intuitive and should have their logic layed bare, some things are fairly intuitive. If I want to move a file, draging it into a flolder makes more sense than "mv /path-to/file /destination/" if I don't already have a good image of the filesystem in my mind. If I want to add a conditional in a service init CLI makes a lot more sence. A CLI can also adopt a GUI feel (the ncurses API as one example). They are differences tools, and yes this means they are inherently bad at some tasks. If you try to force them in, they just start looking and feeling more and more like the opposing paradigms.

Re:learn how to use the command line

[amicusNYCL]

It worked pretty well when I was trying to figure out how to do things in Photoshop, or Soundforge, or even IIS.

GIMP, on the other hand.. GIMP is a great example of a GUI doing nothing for the software.

Re:learn how to use the command line

[Hatta]

You don't need a GUI for autocompletion or hyperlinked help. Emacs does both for instance.

Re:learn how to use the command line

[colinrichardday]

Neither Photoshop nor Soundforge is server software. As for IIS, is it hard to configure with a command line, or is the GUI that good?

Re:learn how to use the command line

[medcalf]

If GUIs cannot be designed yet that are good at complex tasks, then how is that different from saying that GUIs are not good at very complex configurations? The statements are functionally equivalent, like the saying that someone who won't read a book has no advantage over someone who can't read a book. Either way, the book didn't get read. If we have the ability to create good administration interfaces for complex systems with a command line, and not a GUI, then why is that an advantage for the GUI?

Don't get me wrong: I love GUIs for user interaction with systems. They're just not that good for the configuration of the systems themselves, in most cases.

Re:learn how to use the command line

[nabsltd]

Fine, I should have said "Group Policy editor", even though the window title for that program is "Group Policy".

Re:learn how to use the command line

[PhrstBrn]

A good command line tool would still be faster to use than the the existing GP GUI.

Re:learn how to use the command line

[amicusNYCL]

I've never tried to configure IIS with a command line. As for at least IIS7, it does actually have a good GUI.

Neither Photoshop nor Soundforge is server software.

The statement "a GUI is not progress" was not qualified as only applying to a specific kind of software. I was trying to make the point that it is in fact possible for a GUI to help people learn how to use software, regardless of what kind of software it is.

Re:learn how to use the command line

[colinrichardday]

But the thread was about a server version of Mac OSX, so the OP may have implicitly made that qualification.

They need to have mac os X sever for any VM on

[Joe_Dragon]

They need to have mac os X sever for any VM on any base hardware.

Apple does not even have a real sever any more.

The mini and mac pro are lacking in big plies like.

Dual PSU

lights-out management (LOM)

Hot swap HDDS -at least the mac pro has easy to get to HDD bays

Dual nics in the mini.

no easy to make bootable installation DVD or image for sever 10.7 -you can make a OSX 10.7 install image / dvd.

NO sever OS downgrade on the new hardware.

Re:They need to have mac os X sever for any VM on

[TheRaven64]

If you have those kind of requirements, then you can probably afford an admin who actually understands the software that he's using. The actual server applications that OS X Server uses are either third-party open source programs or released by Apple on Mac OS Forge. If you're a small business that doesn't have a dedicated IT team, then Mac OS X Server gives you a simple GUI that will handle most common tasks and can be operated by someone moderately computer literate. If you're a large enterprise, then you probably don't need the GUI and you can do better by buying server hardware from a company that specialises in that part of the market and running some other *NIX flavour with the same server programs on it.

Re:They need to have mac os X sever for any VM on

[jalefkowit]

Considering that their current strategy of making sexy things for consumers and completely ignoring the enterprise market is making them metric truckloads of money, I doubt they would agree that they "need" to offer any of those things.

Re:They need to have mac os X sever for any VM on

[CheerfulMacFanboy]

2 Hot Standby Minis for the price of 1/2 Server, running IP over 1394 as their second NIC.

Re:They need to have mac os X sever for any VM on

[EXrider]

When they announced the discontinuation of Xserve, I was actually hoping that they'd change the EULA on 10.7 server to allow it to run on Hypervisors on the robust hardware of your choice. This is not the case, and is extremely disappointing. The mini and Mac Pro do NOT cut it as server platforms.

Re:Server Admin Tools

[Anonymous Coward]

The server admin tool you're talking about is cut down compared to the tools in v10.6. Some key screens are now completely gone and so configuring some aspects will not work.

My favourite feature of the new server.app is how the ssl certs keep resetting to bad configurations.

Advanced GUI tools still available

[vijayiyer]

All of the advanced GUI tools (Server Admin, Workgroup Manager, etc.) have been updated for 10.7 and available as a separate download from Apple:

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1419

The whole premise of this article is bunk.

Re:Advanced GUI tools still available

[PC and Sony Fanboy]

The whole premise of this article is bunk.

No, the reinforcement of the premise is bunk. IT departments will still hate 10.7, if for the only reason they've always hated OSX - not for stability or user-friendlyness, but for the simple fact that having an apple backend will draw hipster know-nothings to apply to work at their company.

Re:Advanced GUI tools still available

[DarkVader]

Know how I know you didn't RTFA?

The article is not bunk, and the author mentions the admin tools. He also points out that a good chunk of the functionality of those tools have been ripped out, you're limited to the Server app or command line for quite a few things.

Re:Advanced GUI tools still available

[TheLink]

IT folks who know what they are doing usually prefer CLIs to GUIs. A GUI is fine for configuring a single server once (or trying to ;) ). Not so nice when you have more than a handful. And good luck having your developers rapidly create decent GUIs for every feature/configuration/task you want to add.

Heck even Microsoft has realized that and made powershell. Perhaps due to the pain of running Hotmail on Windows ;).

A good GUI can probably beat a CLI in many things, but not usually for stuff like "advanced configuration" of servers.

Re:Advanced GUI tools still available

[RatBastard]

1/10. Obvious troll is obvious.

Re:Advanced GUI tools still available

[PC and Sony Fanboy]

No, the reinforcement of the premise is bunk. IT departments will still hate 10.7, if for the only reason they've always hated OSX - not for stability or user-friendlyness, but for the simple fact that having an apple backend will draw hipster know-nothings to apply to work at their company.

1/10. Obvious troll is obvious.

Yes, an obvious troll. But no one said that trolling can't also be 100% truthful...

Re:Advanced GUI tools still available

[PC and Sony Fanboy]

No, the reinforcement of the premise is bunk. IT departments will still hate 10.7, if for the only reason they've always hated OSX - not for stability or user-friendlyness, but for the simple fact that having an apple backend will draw hipster know-nothings to apply to work at their company.

1/10. Obvious troll is obvious.

Yes, an obvious troll. But no one said that trolling can't also be 100% truthful...

... obviously no true [STRIKE]scotsman[/STRIKE] network administrator would disagree with me...

Re:Advanced GUI tools still available

[sirsnork]

Gah, look I can run a command line perfectly well, but if I want to add a new staff member and then put that account in 15 different groups I'll be using the GUI thanks, simply because I can do the 20 or so clicks quicker than I can all the account to all those groups.

And yes, when setting up a lot of servers it's easier to script them, but how many people really do that? Especially since the arguments are that OSX isn't enterprise ready and only for small shops.

Re:Advanced GUI tools still available

[theolein]

Did you actually read the article?

Re:Advanced GUI tools still available

[CheerfulMacFanboy]

The whole premise of this article is bunk.

No, the reinforcement of the premise is bunk. IT departments will still hate 10.7, if for the only reason they've always hated OSX - not for stability or user-friendlyness, but for the simple fact that having an apple backend will draw hipster know-nothings to apply to work at their company.

And push out all the un-hip know-nothing MCSEs. Silly Microsoft, copying Cisco in their drive to establish 4-letter fraternities.

Re:Advanced GUI tools still available

[Rutulian]

It's not just about scripting and automation, though. If you want to do pretty much anything with Apache that is more complicated than a basic setup, you have to delve into the config file. Virtual hosts, url rewriting, .htpasswd authentication...nothing aside from setting the port and www_root is supported in the GUI. I haven't played around with Samba on OS X much, but I imagine the smb.conf file is pretty much the same way. This is the same story on linux too, by the way. Real configuration requires messing with the config file. There are GUIs out there that can make a few simple common tasks just a few mouse clicks, but if you are setting up a serious server, that is rarely sufficient.

I will say that the automagick directory configuration and management in OS X is pretty nice, though. The last time I had to mess around with ldap manually I was pulling my hair out....

Re:Server Admin Tools

[bananaquackmoo]

It sounds like he isn't. I'd mod you up if I could.

Strange beef

[Medievalist]

I don't know any high quality sysadmins that want more point'n'click high-bandwidth GUI features on their servers, and less reliance on low-bandwidth SSH console commands.

I mean, I'm willing to hypothesize that they are out there, sure, but I'm also willing to postulate the existence of flying monkeys for the sake of discussion. I don't expect to ever meet one.

Re:Strange beef

[cHiphead]

Hey, once we hit 16 cores an 32GB ram on a gigabit backend I kinda stopped worrying about bandwidth. I will note, Mac OS X 10.6 Server vs Windows 2008 Server, I tend to have a more reliable GUI experience on Mac since Windows gets randomly slow and wacky when performing certain functions from the GUI. I prefer console but I have been getting lazier/dumber(?) as the years go by and I find myself just point and clicking more often now.

I'd even consider moving our infrastructure to BSD or even Linux at this point. Save money on licensing vs Windows and get actual server class functionality vs Mac. Maybe if Apple hadn't failed gloriously in the ZFS department we'd have something to positive to write about.

Windows?

[Hatta]

If you're not satisfied with your upgrade path from an OS X server, why would Windows be your choice? Wouldn't another UNIX like platform be an easier, cheaper, and more reliable choice?

Re:Windows?

[DarkVader]

Windoze is not an option, let alone my choice for an upgrade path.

I'm not replacing any currently running OS X servers just for the fun of it, but I'm not going to be putting 10.7 on them, and I'm probably going to be installing quite a few more Linux servers in the coming years.

Re:Windows?

[DAldredge]

Windows server isn't reliable? Can you give example of how it isn't?

Re:Windows?

[Hatta]

Not at all. However, a solution designed for a UNIX operating system (e.g. OS X) is likely to be less reliable when ported to a different system (e.g. Windows).

Nowhere did I say that Windows was less reliable than UNIX.

Re:Windows?

[Medievalist]

Windows server isn't reliable? Can you give example of how it isn't?

I don't think the problem is actually windows, but reliability of windows server applications is a real problem, at least everywhere I've worked.

Big windows application servers (which run brand-name apps that some pointy-haired boss insists are vitally necessary to the business but everyone else considers time-wasting nonsense) usually have to be rebooted on a schedule in order to compensate for memory leaks. The problem applications are always closed-source so you cannot fix them.

If you find an enterprise windows app that supports thousands of users and doesn't require regular OS reboots, consider it a "best of class" piece of software!

Re:We get the idea

[bluemonq]

The share price and earnings of a vendor doesn't help the IT department do their work. IT doesn't care about share price and earnings, as long as they're both positive numbers and not trending downward (meaning the vendor isn't likely to go bankrupt and thus leave them with unsupported product).

Oh boy, more speculative click bait about OSX Lion

[Bill_the_Engineer]

Nothing changes. Haters hate, and people who hate change will bicker. Eventually 10.7.1 will come out and fix some of the problems that are discovered during general release and life will go on. I remember similar stories about Leopard and Snow leopard.

Time Machine over a network is broken

[qwertyatwork]

If your using a non time capsule network backup, it's broken. They disabled DHCAST128, and use dhx2 instead.

Re:Time Machine over a network is broken

[jimicus]

That's true of plain Lion without the Server addon; if your NAS vendor won't provide a firmware upgrade you're SOL.

This is why I chose a NAS unit from a vendor with a habit of providing software upgrades for some time after the original unit was discontinued.

Re:Time Machine over a network is broken

[qwertyatwork]

I'm doing this on a Linux box. I did have it as a smb share, but smb is gone now to.

Re:Time Machine over a network is broken

[jimicus]

?

IIRC time machine was never supported under SMB.

Upgrade process

[kehren77]

My biggest complaint is the lack of information about the upgrade process. I currently have a Mac running 10.5.8 Server and I haven't been able to find anything that will tell me if any of my settings will migrate if I upgrade to 10.6 and then to 10.7 and then add the Server addon. Do I have to start over at that point or will my server settings be maintained through that process?

Seems like this might be a situation a lot of people could be in if they didn't want to shell out another $500 for 10.6 Server but are now interested in upgrading to 10.7 Server.

Re:Upgrade process

[DarkVader]

Apple seems to imply that it will work. But there's no way I'd even consider trying it without cloning the drive and thoroughly testing it on the clone first.

And for the foreseeable future, it looks like 10.6 Server is a much better product. I'd keep an eye out for used copies of that, maybe you can find it cheap.

Re:Upgrade process

[macshome]

The migration docs lay all this out.

You can upgrade in one shot from 10.6.8 Server. The installer will see that you are running on Server and pull down the server bits as needed.

You need to migrate from services from 10.5 Server to 10.7 Server on your own though.

Re:Upgrade process

[EXrider]

Most definitely have a tested and working backup of your server before you attempt it.

I can tell you from experience, if you've customized any of the actual services outside of the Server Admin app by editing their config files directly via Terminal, you'll need to diff and manually merge your config changes back into the affected service(s) config files.

Also, you won't be able to upgrade directly from 10.5 server because it doesn't have the App Store.

Not surprising

[Srsen]

With the elimination of the XServe and now the simplifying of Lion Server, it's clear that Apple has decided to choose a different vector for their server business. To me it seems they are now focused on the SOHO market where the users administer the network and there is no IT department (obviously another reason why IT professionals REALLY do not like Lion Server). This is a very Apple thing to do: turn something complicated into something almost anyone can do. I would not be surprised if they ended up making more money with this approach than they did with the XServe approach - this way has a significantly broader base.

I would never have considered using OS X Server at home before but I an now thinking about using my current Mini for a home server after I upgrade to a new machine because it now seems doable and worthwhile to me.

Some of those the mini has

[SuperKendall]

Hot swap HDDS -at least the mac pro has easy to get to HDD bays

The minis these days make it very easy to get to HDD and RAM. You just unscrew a large cap on the bottom.

Dual nics in the mini.

How about 20? It has Thunderbolt.

no easy to make bootable installation DVD or image for sever 10.7

What? It's very easy to make a bootable clone using a program like Super Duper.

The dual PSU is an issue, but the mini's are so small and cheap enough why wouldn't you just be running several and have hot failover to the working ones?

They actually seem like really good server systems to me.

Re:Some of those the mini has

[DAldredge]

ECC RAM is somewhat important in a server.

Re:Some of those the mini has

[bakawolf]

Hot swap HDDS -at least the mac pro has easy to get to HDD bays

The minis these days make it very easy to get to HDD and RAM. You just unscrew a large cap on the bottom.

Nope, gotta remove the logic board to get the HDD out of there. Nice try though.

Re:Some of those the mini has

[Elbart]

True, you only have to remove the fan to get to the HD, excellent for hot-swapping, isn't it?

Re:Some of those the mini has

[repetty]

ECC RAM is somewhat important in a server.

I agree. That said, I recently became interested in replacing my aging home server and, in my research, have learned that there are now lots of companies selling "mini-servers" and their mobos and MOST (all?) of the models don't support ECC memory.

Apparently, in that market strata, ECC just isn't that important.

This may be an occasion where Apple's marketing instincts are more correct than our prejudices.

Re:Some of those the mini has

[drb_chimaera]

The most recent Mini you can get the HDD out without pulling the logic board - you need to remove the WLAN antenna but thats it - have a look here for a teardown of the newly released model: http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Mac-Mini-Mid-2011-Teardown/6131/1

Re:Some of those the mini has

[jimicus]

The dual PSU is an issue, but the mini's are so small and cheap enough why wouldn't you just be running several and have hot failover to the working ones?

They actually seem like really good server systems to me.

Hot failover is damn difficult. If your application doesn't support it (which many don't), your only realistic option today is to virtualise it and set up some sort of mechanism to shut down the (failed) virtual server and swap everything over to the hot spare - which usually implies shared storage of some sort.

There are ways to try and work around this with Linux and DRBD but AFAIK no distribution has yet done this in a reasonably neat fashion - you'd have to lash so much together by hand there's a very good chance you'd wind up with something less reliable than a single server on its own.

Re:Some of those the mini has

[EvilStein]

The macminicolo.net folks seem to agree with you on that one.

I think that Apple is still squarely in the market they enjoy - and that isn't big iron.

Re:Some of those the mini has

[CheerfulMacFanboy]

Hot swap HDDS -at least the mac pro has easy to get to HDD bays

The minis these days make it very easy to get to HDD and RAM. You just unscrew a large cap on the bottom.

Nope, gotta remove the logic board to get the HDD out of there. Nice try though.

http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Mac-Mini-Mid-2011-Teardown/6131/1 - step 6, not even half-way down page 1, and the hard drive is already out - and place for a second. Gee, not even a nice try.

Re:Some of those the mini has

[cHiphead]

1. He said did specify HOT SWAP hard drives, not just replaceable hdd and ram.

2. When Thunderbolt can run dual gigabit NIC connections at full speed without taxing the CPU cores and repeated memory errors due to non-ECC ram, then maybe you'll have a point here, as it stands, thats not viable for reliable server infrastructure.

3. Using a third party tool you can make a bootable clone of any OS. Its not so easy for the target market of the new OS to know they HAVE to make a boot disk, and they will be throwing money at consultants to boot the drive with an OS disk to repair the drive if something goes wrong with the OS files.

4. Minis are SO damn underpowered that they are useless for server operations. The lack of ECC RAM is a big concern for reliability on server oriented machines as well. I have a client who decided to implement a mac mini running 10.6 Server as their file server and its dog slow. Minis are absolutely TERRIBLE platforms to run as a business server (or even a home server if you are a freelance creative kinda person with a lot of large files). Sure, they work great for home media centers, but throw more than 2 or 3 workstations on the network for day to day use and it all goes to hell.

Re:Some of those the mini has

[SuperKendall]

He said did specify HOT SWAP hard drives, not just replaceable hdd and ram.

True, I didn't comment on that, just the aspect of them being replaceable. Obviously external Thunderbolt HD's could be though. Why worry about an HD on the device?

When Thunderbolt can run dual gigabit NIC connections at full speed without taxing the CPU cores and repeated memory errors due to non-ECC ram

How do you know it can't? Your fear-mongering over ECC is totally out of line. Again if you are thinking of this the way Google thinks of hardware, many cheap nodes that can die and it doesn't matter, well it doesn't matter. That would be the way to look at using Mac minis in a server configuration, not as a replacement for a typical $5k server box.

Using a third party tool you can make a bootable clone of any OS. Its not so easy for the target market of the new OS to know they HAVE to make a boot disk

Hey sysadmins! He's calling you stupid! You may proceed with your usual revenge.

Minis are SO damn underpowered that they are useless for server operations.

You obviously have not seen spacs on the newest ones. They are quite a lot more powerful. For server work, you would obviously want to (1) add memory and (2) use an SSD. That would provide quite a boost.

Re:Some of those the mini has

[SuperKendall]

With a server you'd obviously be better off using external storage as primary for the mini. Although I would replace the internal disk with an SSD. You can just get a small drive and use it as a system drive only, keeping all storage external....

Re:Some of those the mini has

[cHiphead]

True, I didn't comment on that, just the aspect of them being replaceable. Obviously external Thunderbolt HD's could be though. Why worry about an HD on the device?

Obviously you have never been an IT consultant. Thunderbolt is another firewire-esque scheme at the moment, and does not offer the demonstrated reliability of internal SAS or even SATA interfaces. I'm also interested to know how a 10gbps channel is going to make a difference when accessing SAS or SATA drives in RAID (the default offering in the Apple Store with the mini server does not use SSD) with current hardware. I want to see some actual performance testing in a production environment. What RAID card has thunderbolt connectors? What non-server class hardware available today has throughput capability to hit 10gbps with thunderbolt? In five years, maybe. As sexy as thunderbolt sounds, actual implementation and usage is currently minimal and is mental tech masturbation.

How do you know it can't? Your fear-mongering over ECC is totally out of line. Again if you are thinking of this the way Google thinks of hardware, many cheap nodes that can die and it doesn't matter, well it doesn't matter. That would be the way to look at using Mac minis in a server configuration, not as a replacement for a typical $5k server box.

How do you know it CAN? This is a new technology, where else other than consumer devices is it being deployed? Who is using any of this in a production system, or even a testing deployment, other than perhaps OEMs and vendor research labs? In regards to ECC, there is a determined difference with server class hardware running ECC, I've experienced it first hand. You can get away with non-ECC in a lot of situations without much problem, but when you are being paid to integrate the most reliable systems for the money, you go the extra mile and get the slightly more reliable hardware infrastructure for a server. This has nothing to do with fear mongering, I'm optimizing for stability and reliability. Google has top notch programmers and systems designers that have created an ecosystem of reliable software to make use of lower end and custom built hardware, what OS and failover software are you going to use to manage the mac minis? How are you going to implement and manage failover of services? The scenario you are caught up in is for a small business oriented infrastructure, and it will simply cost too much money to implement and MAINTAIN such a system properly. Most small businesses aren't looking to shell out $25+ an hour for a dedicated IT employee, much less $130/hr for consultants to come in each week. You get to choose two: minimal administration; data redundancy; cheap. Google just spent more money on the development of the software to make up for the cheaper hardware.

Hey sysadmins! He's calling you stupid! You may proceed with your usual revenge.

Now I think you are just trolling me entirely. The target market of Mac Minis and Lion is the consumer market and small businesses. Sysadmins know that already.

You obviously have not seen spacs on the newest ones. They are quite a lot more powerful. For server work, you would obviously want to (1) add memory and (2) use an SSD. That would provide quite a boost.

I have seen the specs. Looks good on paper, but still consumer hardware and still slows to a crawl when you get more than a couple machines actively accessing files on them. Actual experience in the field trumps theoretical performance possibilities fed to us by market departments.

Re:Some of those the mini has

[SuperKendall]

Thunderbolt is another firewire-esque scheme at the moment, and does not offer the demonstrated reliability of internal SAS or even SATA interfaces. I'm also interested to know how a 10gbps channel is going to make a difference when accessing SAS or SATA drives in RAID (the default offering in the Apple Store with the mini server does not use SSD) with current hardware.

Well of course there's not much around now, it's quite new. As for reliability of SATA, well then you'd use eSATA through Thunderbolt until direct thunderbolt devices are more tested. It has the technical capacity for higher throughput so I don't know why you doubt it can achieve that, just as eSATA grew to be quite reliable.

Most small businesses aren't looking to shell out $25+ an hour for a dedicated IT employee, much less $130/hr for consultants to come in each week.

That is EXACTLY why you would want a mac for a small business server. No they aren't going to be setting up failover, they also aren't going to be buying real server systems either - they are going to get a consumer POS from Dell and run it without backup until it drops. A Mac mini with a Time Capsule is the perfect small business server exactly because they don't have to think about anything.

How do you know it CAN? This is a new technology, where else other than consumer devices is it being deployed? Who is using any of this in a production system, or even a testing deployment, other than perhaps OEMs and vendor research labs?

MacMIniColo uses nothing but MacMini systems for colocation. They have quite a few customers using the mac mini in production today.

They support a variety of configurations including multiple mac minis and external HD's, they have remote power and everything you expect from a colocation facility.

The target market of Mac Minis and Lion is the consumer market and small businesses. Sysadmins know that already.

The PRIMARY target market is that. But note that Apple sells the Mac mini in a server configuration specifically, which is Apple stating "here is a viable server system".

Actual experience in the field trumps theoretical performance possibilities fed to us by market departments.

I have been using a Mac mini in colocation to drive several websites, it works fine.

No it's never going to displace "real" server systems. But there are a ton of uses, even pretty heavy duty internal IT uses, where it would work just fine.

The writer has no clue

[Anonymous Coward]

He got all the installation part wrong. Once you buy Lion from the AppStore you can easily create a DVD without any hacks and there are a couple of ways more to install Lion (including a netinstall). You don't need snow leopard either.

Best of Both Worlds

[endikos]

Honestly, It seems to me that the things that are best done in a windowed environment (user management, policy management, etc) have been kept in a nice GUI, whereas the things that have been traditionally configured in text files or via the command line on *nix servers have been kept that way. Quit moaning about having to actually learn how to administer a server. I don't see how IT guys in a enterprise are really going to see this as a bad thing. If they already know how to administer a *nix box, they can administer a OSX box. I can see this affecting shops that are solely OSX Server environments, but those are the exception, not the rule.

Elimination?

[smcdow]

... the elimination of advanced GUI administration tools...

Incorrect. Lion does indeed include the most awesome GUI administration tool in existence.

It's called Terminal.

Re:Elimination?

[Anonymous Coward]

you do not know the meaning of GUI I guess. Terminal is great but not considered GUI. Terminal is command line dipsh@t.

Re:Elimination?

[Hymer]

"Incorrect. Lion does indeed include the most awesome GUI administration tool in existence.

It's called Terminal."

Even quite hardcore UNIX guys will get a very funny look on their face when you tell them to use the Terminal as an admin tool on OS X.

Been there, tried that... got the response: "It's an Apple, I will NOT use a Terminal on an Apple... there must be a fancy GUI somwhere".

Re:Elimination?

[TyIzaeL]

That's the joke.

Advanced GUI

[Murdoch5]

I know when I do IT I go headless Linux. My question is what IT Professional actually needs to use advanced GUI administration tools. I'm NOT bashing those of you who use them but when I think server I think command line. The desktop has the GUI and the server has the prompt. Much like an embedded system where you want to the power to be available it just makes more sense to go with no GUI. This is why to me Windows based server's never made sense. I know it's a widely used Server OS and I know it's involved in a lot of company's but I just personally have never been a fan. So by OS X Lion saying they have elimination of advanced GUI administration tools I say this is a good thing! I'm not going to sit here and fan boy Linux or anything like that, but on a totally personal belief, right or wrong I'm going to say IT is a command line only world. Leave the GUI for the desktop and the command line for the server.

Feel free to criticize me for this but either way it's is my opinion, right or wrong.

Re:Advanced GUI

[Desler]

Then use Windows Server core installation if the GUI bothers you so much.

Re:Advanced GUI

[bugs2squash]

I like a command line for my own use too, but it sucks for talking someone through something over the phone and recently I've seen a whole bunch of IT services being devolved to the end users (eg software installation) using a document full of screenshots for users to follow. To my mind, one advantage of GUI over cli is that it is more acceptable to users to be given instructions spanning several pages of color pictures than it would be to tell them to type even a few simple unfamiliar commands into a command line even where the user is a reasonable person. I think that may stem from there being fewer choices. After all once can type any idiotic or misheard thing at a command line especially if at least one person on the call is talking in a language other than their native tongue. User choices are more limited with forms and if you go with forms one may as well have pretty GUI forms as fast/businesslike curses forms.

Re:Advanced GUI

[maxwell demon]

But with CLI they could just copy/paste the commands. Or you could send them a script to execute. If they trust you enough, you might even get a remote shell and do it yourself.

Re:Advanced GUI

[bigstrat2003]

Wrong. You develop a robust CLI and a robust GUI, and let people choose what to use according to their preference. The attitude on /. that you need to have one or the other is ridiculous. What on earth is wrong with recognizing that different people work differently, and giving them options??

Re:Advanced GUI

[Murdoch5]

I agree with you, there is a pro to using GUI's but I find it leads to sloppy and lazy tech help on the phone. If the person on the other end is actually qualified to provide help then they should have no issue walking me through the command line. If there just reading a screen for min wage then they need screen shots. like I said how ever, this is my opinion and I don't expect any one else to support this. To each there own.

Re:Advanced GUI

[Murdoch5]

Wrong? Based on what. Based on your horrible defense of your point your the one who's wrong. Your only defense is people work differently. If you actually took the time to read what I wrote you'd understand that I said I'm NOT bashing people who use them. Of course being completely unable to read simple English you missed that fact I said I prefer CLI, not you, not him, not the other guy, I prefer CLI. You develop a GUI when one is actually needed and in most cases servers do NOT need GUI components. If you take a Linux server admin and sit him in front of a windows server he'll have no problem picking up administration. If you sit a windows baby in front of a command line there more lost then baby in a room of top less women.

How ever being you didn't read what I wrote the first time to reinforce the point I made, I DO NOT LIKE GUI'S ON SERVER. I'M NOT BASHING PEOPLE WHO PREFER THEM. So next time you want to jump down my throat and try to tell me you always develop both, read the post and make make sure you get the point. You can have all the fun in world on your GUI's on your server and I wont make a sound, but I'm going to remain command line only.

Re:Advanced GUI

[bigstrat2003]

I did read the post. You said that because you think GUI has no place on the server, that it shouldn't be included. You're not bashing those who prefer GUIs, but you are calling for something that would result in less choice, not more.

Re:Advanced GUI

[Murdoch5]

Fine but then why did you make such a massive opinionated post, if right in my post I made the point of saying I don't care if you like GUI's then why storm in like that? I don't want to be a dick or anything but at least recognize the fact that I clearly pointed out how I don't expect others to care if they support my view, if you find it wrong then thats fine, I admit I don't share everyone's view point. I also made the point of saying I think the GUI does have a point and it's on the desktop. If you developing desktop level soft then I'm 100% in a agreement with your point, on the desktop you should have a robust GUI and robust CLI, that is a great view point. Just not what I look for on a server, I'm I saying I wont get software because it has a GUI, no. However I want all software to have a CLI included. So far I've ran into almost nothing I can't do easier on the command line then in a GUI.

Re:Advanced GUI

[Culture20]

This is why to me Windows based server's never made sense. I know it's a widely used Server OS and I know it's involved in a lot of company's but I just personally have never been a fan.

[...]

Of course being completely unable to read simple English [...]

Apostrophes are not used for pluralization except for single letters or acronyms/abbreviations (A's, Ph.D.'s).

Re:Advanced GUI

[Murdoch5]

I'm very glad you pointed that out, I'll take the hit but still the original point doesn't change. So my quote still holds, you can read it and understand it. I guess I should re read my post multiple times. I often make simple grammar errors but that doesn't really change the sentence and in a reread or two I would of picked that up.

It's interesting how only one person has attempted to make a constructive argument to my post, It's below.

I like a command line for my own use too, but it sucks for talking someone through something over the phone and recently I've seen a whole bunch of IT services being devolved to the end users (eg software installation) using a document full of screenshots for users to follow. To my mind, one advantage of GUI over cli is that it is more acceptable to users to be given instructions spanning several pages of color pictures than it would be to tell them to type even a few simple unfamiliar commands into a command line even where the user is a reasonable person. I think that may stem from there being fewer choices. After all once can type any idiotic or misheard thing at a command line especially if at least one person on the call is talking in a language other than their native tongue. User choices are more limited with forms and if you go with forms one may as well have pretty GUI forms as fast/businesslike curses forms. -

Re:Oh boy, more speculative click bait about OSX L

[DarkVader]

Not this time. This isn't about bugs, it's about intentionally removed functionality.

I do sincerely hope Apple gets a clue from these articles and realizes that they screwed up. But I'm not holding my breath, and I'm not recommending any more Mac servers for my customers unless they have a specific need. I've always been a big Mac proponent, but I'm getting tired of apologizing. This time, I'm not going to, I'll be installing more Linux servers as it's time to replace the 10.6 servers I've installed, unless Apple fixes this mess.

Re:We get the idea

[hawguy]

So IT departments may not like apple for various reasons.

Look at the share price and the earnings. Apple, quite rightly, couldn't care less.

I don't think it needs an article a day to say what IT departments think of apple either

Slashdot is not the Wall Street Journal - most people here don't care about Apple's share price and earnings, but many of us do care about what to do with our existing OSX servers, whether or not we should plan an upgrade to Lion, and what impact that will have on us.

Re:Huh?

[Desler]

So using Unix to run your server means you're not an IT professional? What are they supposed to install? BeOS?

Re:Huh?

[david.emery]

I posit that anyone using a server version of an Apple product is not an IT professional to begin with.

I posit you're either an idiot or a bigot, or both. But it's clear you are uninformed. There are many installations, profit and non-profit, using OS X Server.

Re:We get the idea

[Anonymous Coward]

This is "News for geeks, stuff that matters," not "News for Apple execs, stuff that mattes to Apple"

It is still useful info for people considering Apple in these server positions.

Re:Huh?

[damn_registrars]

Well, I presume he means GNU Linux, of course! Because Gnu Not Unix!

We're planning on moving away from OS X Server

[metallic]

The writing was on the wall as soon as Apple announced that the Xserve line was going away and nothing would be replacing it as a rackmount option. The sad thing is that everything works remarkably well together (we've had 6 servers attached to 6TB of storage using Xsan for years now with no problems) but it's simply no longer a supported solution. And Apple's suggestion to replace the servers with Mac Pros or Mac Minis is simply ridiculous for a handful of reasons. In the mean time, we're looking at hardware from IBM and Oracle and weighing our options.

Re:We get the idea

[NatasRevol]

" IT doesn't care about share price and earnings, as long as they're both positive numbers and not trending downward"

You might want to go look at any other vendor's numbers then...

Stop using the GUI...

[Roogna]

Honestly, having used OS X Server for years, I long ago stopped using the GUI tools for anything that it wasn't required for. Simply because it was always happy to blast away any advanced changes that might have been made by hand. Nothing like having to restore backups of httpd.conf simply because Server Admin or System Update decided to just write over the existing one. Hell, I've also had System Update simply write a blank virgin setup over our LDAP setup. So if 10.7 looses half the GUI and in return (I'm hoping anyway, haven't installed the server version yet...) will simply leave files alone that are already configured, I'd consider that a welcome trade.

Re:Stop using the GUI...

[EXrider]

I long ago stopped using the GUI tools for anything that it wasn't required for. Simply because it was always happy to blast away any advanced changes that might have been made by hand

Yeah, this is extremely annoying, but in my experience, it's typical of most Open Source Unix apps. It does seem to be way more frequent on OS X than Linux though. Whenever the config file format changes, the package renames your old config files and replaces them with the new ones. It's up to the admin to interpret the changes and merge them back into the new config files as necessary, 9 times out of 10 you can get away with just putting your entire old config back on OS X, but it's probably a really bad idea on other Unixes, especially if you haven't reviewed what the actual changes were.

So if 10.7 looses half the GUI and in return (I'm hoping anyway, haven't installed the server version yet...) will simply leave files alone that are already configured, I'd consider that a welcome trade.

Yeah, we'll see about that. Apple's packaging system doesn't seem nearly that advanced at this point and I doubt they would invest time in changing it just to cater to the server crowd. Their GUI admin tools never worked right with custom config files, so this dumbing down of the GUI will at least eliminate that part of the problem.

Re:Stop using the GUI...

[ernst_mulder]

Same here.

Actually I have always found the GUI part of Mac OS X Server troublesome, for the most part because the GUI actually modifies many of my regular .conf files and you can never be quite sure what they do.

I manage a few Mac OS X 10.6 Servers providing mail and web services. All configuration except (at the moment) for the addition/deletion of user accounts is done using SSH and home made configuration scripts. Much faster too.

Ernst Mulder

Re:Just fits in perfectly with the

[thestudio_bob]

First, this article is about Lion Server and you seem to be talking about Mac OS X Lion Client, but what the heck...

I've installed Lion on my client machine and I got to say, that I love it. It installed on my system with ease and didn't muck up the way I had my Snow Leopard environment setup. Everything is snappier, seriously. My iTunes used to show the little beach ball anytime I tried to move to another library or click on a new song. Mail, same thing.

Your beef with the icons, it doesn't bother me as much as it apparently bothers you, but I like it. The content seems to stand out more and the "interface" just blends in with the background.

Mission Control, Launchpad, etc... I never used any of those features on Snow Leopard (Spaces, etc) and I'm not really using them on Lion. I could see how new switchers coming from iOS might find it comforting, but as a long time Mac OS X user I just choose not to use them and they are easily avoided.

Now, as for Server... I spent 8 hours and did 3 clean installs trying to get that thing working this weekend, but it's extremely buggy and I was quite disappointed. I finally got it working to find and after I set up my cert, I discovered that it forced every web connection to be "https" on my web server. I couldn't figure out how the heck to set up a normal server and a secure one. I think apple has a lot of work to do on this thing (if they have plans to do so), but as a small business user trying to just set up a development environment, it was not fun. I gave up.

Anyway, Lion Client rocks, Server seems to suck. That's my 2

Another Sad Day For Mac IT

[not_hylas( )]

This is truly a major disappointment - right on the heels of the discontinued xServe.
I couldn't be more sad for the direction and the position Jobs & Co. has put Mac IT in. It's like a nightmare. Here we had the best stuff, server and Server OS-wise and they wreck it all within the span of a year.
I'm starting to get pissed off, and I'm a long time FANBOY. I fucking love the Macintosh. There's nowhere to run.
What the hell are they thinking?
They deserve whatever comes their way now, they've demoted us to what used to be vicious lies about what the Mac was.
This is a nightmare, God, wake me up.
Bloody-Hell.

Re:Comparison?

[tepples]

There's a noticeable difference between a package getting dumped from the default install and a package no longer being made available at all.

Re:Oh boy, more speculative click bait about OSX L

[Serious Callers Only]

I do sincerely hope Apple gets a clue from these articles and realizes that they screwed up. But I'm not holding my breath, and I'm not recommending any more Mac servers for my customers unless they have a specific need. I've always been a big Mac proponent, but I'm getting tired of apologizing. This time, I'm not going to, I'll be installing more Linux servers as it's time to replace the 10.6 servers I've installed, unless Apple fixes this mess.

I'm sure you had good reasons, but I'm not sure I would ever have chosen an Apple server, as Apple were always a bit lukewarm on enterprise support, even when they tried their hardest it was a bit half-hearted, and were never really competing well with Linux or even Windows servers for performance or available server software, though I guess they did have it all presented in a neat package with a nice admin UI. Linux is a much better choice for servers at this point, and in a few years I would expect Apple to drop even more of the server features or even drop it altogether as less and less people use it.

Apple's focus is definitely consumers now, and more specifically, gadgets, mobile and iOS. They have moved on to the next great thing (mobile, cloud), and that's great, it works well for them and the majority of their customers, but it means they have completely lost interest in many parts of their business:

* Pro software like Final Cut Pro has been redesigned to make it easier to use (not adding features, taking them away)
* xCode is still a buggy mess, though it is at least getting some attention.
* Mac Pro machines have not had a major upgrade in years and are quite expensive for what you get compared with consumer options
* Mac OS X has become OS X, and has moved visibly closer to iOS in many ways (and in many ways improved as a consumer OS because of this)

IMHO that change of emphasis from pro to consumer is only going to increase in velocity, unless someone very different from Steve Jobs takes over.

Can Terminal do this?

[tepples]

Through Terminal, can the user access specialized editors for the configuration files that automatically determine which lines are valid and which aren't and interactively restrict input to valid values?

Re:Can Terminal do this?

[medcalf]

Yes, but you'll have to do some work first.

Re:Server Admin Tools

[bigstrat2003]

He is and says so in TFA. He also says that the new version is significantly pared down in functionality.

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As a real Mac sysadmin I will tell you

[guruevi]

Beyond basic configuration, real Mac OS X sysadmins don't use the GUI's. The things the author gripes about (QTSS, MySQL, NFS) were never really expansive in the GUI tools beyond "enable networking" or "run # processes" or "set this service to run on port 8000". QTSS has been replaced, not removed and no longer requires server involvement beyond a file share. MySQL is replaced by PostgreSQL and as said before, beyond "enable networking" really had never any GUI admin tools thus we were still going to command line or phpMyAdmin. MySQL is still there by the way, not removed entirely. NFS same thing, shares were never done in the "NFS" tab, they were done in the "Sharing" tab together with AFP and SMB.

SMB as a PDC/BDC is maybe a slight loss in small environments but thanks to the licensing issues it was stuck on 2 and never could've made it bundled in Mac OS X to 3 (and Windows 7 support) as GPLv3 prevents the proprietary ties to the configuration subsystem. There is documentation available however on how to run Samba 3 (and binary packages as well) on Mac OS X Server and run it as a PDC/BDC against LDAP (which Open Directory is), it just won't be integrated.

I like that XSAN is now included for free. Great if you want to build a large mail or Apache or any type of cluster and very simple to set up. Also the Profiles addition will be a boon in many (especially the more mobile) environments. A lot of that could be done already (provisioning) in Open Directory (using MCX) but not many users like to be bothered with locking down their environment.

Re:As a real Mac sysadmin I will tell you

[Johnny Mnemonic]

So if you don't use the GUI, why not simply buy Linux?

I think the biggest advantage OS X has over the Linux competition is the GUI. If you're ditching that, what advantage does CLI OS X retain over CLI Linux? Do the advantages outweigh the disadvantages?

I ask sincerely. I was a desktop Mac admin with an opportunity to go into Mac Server Admin. When intel Macs came out, I saw that there was no longer a competitive advantage of OS X/Xserve vs. RH on an HP, so got into cloud computing operational support.

Did I make the right choice?

Re:As a real Mac sysadmin I will tell you

[guruevi]

If I see "cloud computing" on anyone's resume I cringe. What part of the 'cloud' are you working on? Virtualization software, virtualization configuration, switches, networking, hardware, server assembly line, racking, wiring, architecture, a specific virtual server, HVAC, weather forecasting, producing rain? A cloud is (to me) one or more datacenters filled with a monoculture of servers.

Anyway. The benefit is that the GUI does a lot of the menial work (eg. Apache site configuration, disk shares, mail server or user provisioning), Open Directory integration with Mac, nice hardware/software combination (including all the bells and whistles) and top shelf support. Red Hat has really good support as well but HP/Dell support lacks unless you fork over the big bucks. Dell will actually retard claims if you run on something they don't directly recognize, sell or support (such as Scientific Linux) or use it for things the first line support thought was not fit for the hardware you bought (such as running a cluster).

If you're in the scientific field, XGrid is nice and easy, in schools or labs NetBoot (and using DeployStudio, you can get free non-Apple deployments as well) is one of those nice things and for small offices especially you can get a full server including a full groupware solution with unlimited seats for the cost of a single no-hardware Windows Server license.

I don't know if your career path was good but personally I wouldn't choose one that involves a buzzword.

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Mac ? Windows ? Server ? hahahahaha.

[unity100]

let me tell you as an industry insider in web hosting/datacenters that server = linux since a long time ago. the question is, which flavor of linux. the most used and accepted one so far is centos. those who want to handle the support bill use red hat enterprise. debian and clones, opensuse come after. ubuntu is just a new entry.

just have a look.

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/

community forum for hosting/it/datacenters. you can find all kinds of people from industry, ranging from (now the biggest datacenter in u.s.) softlayer, much lauded rackspace to obscure indian company to kids who are trying to do hosting with their mothers' credit cards.

Re:Mac ? Windows ? Server ? hahahahaha.

[Reservoir Penguin]

I'm also an industry insider, whatever that means, I find many clients use increasingly using Windows 2008, now a lot of hosters selling hyperv machines, hosted exchange and sharepoint.

Re:Server Admin Tools

[m.ducharme]

Yes. RTFA.

Re:Oh boy, more speculative click bait about OSX L

[repetty]

THANK YOU for not proposing Windows servers as some sort of logical rollover.

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Sensible

[93 Escort Wagon]

I think Apple has come to realize it's simply not a player in the server space. Being Unix, it's hard to compete with Linux when your greatest strength - the UI - isn't really important. There's very little that Apple offers - in the server space, anyway - that the other *nixes don't also provide.

That said, this article is silly. The author likes to refer to "those of us in IT", but clearly he's not particularly technically oriented. Unix admins don't just prefer the command line - they DEMAND it. For a Unix admin, the loss of GUI controls is basically irrelevant. And even if you like having a GUI interface (and, btw, please turn in your geek card at the door), the plaintext configuration files for Apache, Samba, OpenLDAP, CUPS, or what have you are not particularly arcane.

I think the author falls into the camp of people that like to play at being a server admin (seriously - Podcast Producer? Lamenting a GUI for MySQL?) as more or less a "fun little hobby". For those people, Mac Server was a viable alternative to Windows. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's not a commercially viable market.

Re:Sensible

[Culture20]

Unix admins don't just prefer the command line - they DEMAND it. For a Unix admin, the loss of GUI controls is basically irrelevant.

I demanded command line when I started administering some xserves. Then I discovered that config files aren't pure text files, they're xml (still text file, but a pain to read). And starting/stopping services required knowing stupid naming conventions like com.apple.server.streaming.quicktime, or in some cases involved just a plain kill -9 and crossing one's fingers. Aaaand, softwareupdate -a -i would often hang up on iTunes when iTunes wanted to ask for confirmation for the EULA. So GUI it was... There were other quirks, mostly involving missing common GNU commands (a familiar enough issue from the Solaris world).

Windows Server?

[Kwpolska]

InfoWorld's John Rizzo sees Mac OS X Lion Server as a downgrade that may prompt a move to Windows Server.

Apparently, these idiots at IDG don't know what Linux is.

Re:We get the idea

[datapharmer]

great until they max out the consumer market and IT won't allow it anywhere near a corporate lan. lack of group policy support out of the box (on a windows or linux domain) combined with lack of rackmountable options combined with lack of (legal) ability to virtualize means there is really no good solution from apple for medium or large businesses. Apple can say screw you to IT, but as a mac user I can say screw you right back from the server room. I have customers that would go all apple if support for group policies and enterprise tools were better, but instead only have a half dozen macs for creative departments.

So $0 makes Linux the ultimate consumer server

[colnago]

analogy can be illogical.

Re:Who had any delusions of Apple being business..

[omnichad]

After the Final Cut Pro screw-up, this doesn't really surprise me. As a Final Cut Pro user who likes OS X as his primary OS, I'm stuck on 10.6 for as long as I can get by. I didn't even have the newest good Final Cut Studio when they discontinued it. Now, I'll have trouble even finding a copy of that version to buy. My version (FCP Studio 1, I think) only works with 10.6 if I don't install the latest Pro Apps update.

Microsoft doesn't have a strategy

[SmallFurryCreature]

Really, this is something fundemental to remember, MS has no clue as to what way it may be jumping next. Just see gaming on windows. They have changed their tune on it so often they sometimes changed their mind before the previous police had even been announced.

Apple on the other hand has a plan. And OSX as a serious computer isn't a big part of it. They know the big money is in the home and in peoples pockets.

Re:Microsoft doesn't have a strategy

[bluegreen997]

Apple on the other hand has a plan. And OSX as a serious computer isn't a big part of it. They know the big money is in the home and in peoples pockets.

While there is no doubt that Apple has a plan and that they have done quite well in earning profit what you say is rather silly.

If there is a market that has X amount of dollars to earn from as well as market Y and Z and you only focus on X then you are missing out on the true 'big money' because the real 'big money' is to earn profit from X, Y, AND Z.

I knew my signature line was correct

[DigitalReverend]

Just another piece of evidence to prove the fact.

http://apple.slashdot.org/story/11/07/22/1347232/Will-Apples-Lion-Roar-For-Business

Re:Just fits in perfectly with the

[UnknowingFool]

So what you are saying is the majority of changes from Snow Leopard which changes some functionality make it exactly like Vista? Forgive me if my memory is wrong but Vista was panned as horrible because hardware drivers were non-existent or buggy at launch, many machines advertised as Vista compatible could only run the most basic version of Vista, true Vista compatible hardware would require many computer owners to buy new hardware instead of upgrading their XP computers, UAC was annoying at best and intrusive at worse, and offered very so little new functionality for the vast majority of users that many, many businesses waited till Win 7 before upgrading. So Lion after a week or OS is just like Vista? I see.

Re:Oh boy, more speculative click bait about OSX L

[jimicus]

And it makes sense that they did so, for a number of reasons:

1. The day the XServe was discontinued it was obvious that Apple weren't interested in the server market. Come on, they proposed the Mac Mini as an alternative.
2. Some of the removed functionality (I'm thinking particularly the Windows integration) depended on F/OSS projects which haven't seen dramatic functionality improvements in many years. Come on, PDC functionality? What year is this, 1999? Vista onward won't even join a Samba PDC-based domain unless you hack the registry; Samba 4 is still years away.
3. Most of the other aspects of removed functionality I don't see a huge deal with. I don't really see the benefit to a GUI for your database administration unless you also provide a GUI for setting up the application(s) that will talk to it; most printers these days can be purchased with inbuilt networking and putting a print server between such a printer and your workstations seldom makes sense, your'e just adding something to go wrong; the "printer pool" functionality in CUPS is something I've always thought was a bit of a "Look, gran!" function. IMV, the few organisations that would be likely to use this would be very unlikely to use OS X server to do so.

Apple had a choice: either stop focusing on the business server market altogether, cut some of the excessive functionality and target the burgeoning home/micro business server market or invest a small fortune in OS X Server (and, in some cases, the underlying software) to bring it kicking and screaming into parity with Windows Server.

But without the hardware, souping up OS X server in this way makes little sense.

Re:Comparison?

[MrEricSir]

Yes there is. And did the author bother looking into whether the packages he needs are available? Did he look for alternatives?

If so, why didn't he mention that in the article?

OSX server

[tomer]

Am I the last person on Earth that still believe that OSX and Windows are not meant for use as a server?

Not so bad

[sarhjinian]

This isn't really that bad.

The important stuff (MCX) has been enhanced such that client management---which is where the effort is---is easy, fast and comprehensive. The less important stuff is hidden from small shops who would just muck it up, and at the enterprise is usually provided elsewhere (ie, they'll already have an AD domain, Exchange or suchlike, FTP and web servers, file servers etc, etc). Basically, they deprecated stuff most people don't use, or have better solutions for.

About the only real pain is losing enterprise print services, but even that's not too huge a loss considering that, again, there's better tools out there that enterprises are already using, and small shops wouldn't go anywhere near those features.

It would be nice if Apple provided better hardware and/or allowed you to deploy MacOS X Server VMs for things like MCX or ARD. That, more than any of the author's other complaints, is what keeps OS X out of the enterprise. Other nice touches would be SSO on iOS and some way to extend Time Machine services to non-Apple Filers, or if Home Sync/Mobile Users is somehow no longer a festering pile of suck (which, to be fair, is the case on Windows and UNIX when you get to the gigabytes of files stage and are sync'ing profiles)

It's a moot point

[kelemvor4]

It does not matter, apple's server OS will not gain a foothold in enterprise because Apple no longer sells server grade hardware. They suggest you run it on a mac mini or other consumer grade device with no rackmount capability and no redundancy. Apple does not allow the OS to be licensed to run on other hardware platforms (dell, hp, etc). The termination of the apple server hardware was a clear indication that Apple had no interest in the corporate environment; this price structure is just another confirmation.

Other services removed

[rwade]

"Once you locate and download the Server Admin tool, experienced Mac OS X Server administrators will notice it's a much thinner tool than it used to be. Roughly half the services that used to be there are missing. Most user-based services, such as file sharing, calendaring, and Web services, have been moved to the simple Server application. Others, such as QuickTime Streaming Server, have been completely removed."

I wish you had quoted a bit more, because it leads the reader to conclude that if the one service removed that TFA mentions is quick time streaming server, then big f'ing deal. Here's a little more from TFA:

One of the more significant feature rollbacks comes in reduced support for Windows clients. For years, Mac OS X Server's LDAP-based Open Directory had the ability to function as a primary domain controller (PDC) to support Windows clients. The PDC provided Windows clients with single sign-on authentication, and for those who work on both platforms, it gave users access to the same accounts and server-based home folders from their Windows PCs as well as their Macs. In Lion Server, Windows clients still have access to file sharing, but are now second-class clients.

Another service that Apple deleted is the print server of previous Mac OS X Server builds. Lion Server contains only the same ability to share printers found in every copy of Mac OS X client for the past five years: the open source Common Unix Printing System (CUPS), which gives Macs the ability to host shared print queues and simple pools of printers but lacks the enterprise features that previous print servers had. For example, Lion Server's CUPS cannot prioritize printers in the pool or set quotas for individual users or printers. And you can't publish printers to Open Directory.

The print server would seem to be one of the more important removals in functionality.

Re:Other services removed

[bill_mcgonigle]

I can see why NT4-era services might not be worth their effort today, but I think the bigger story here is that they didn't ship Samba 3, which I'm assuming is due to GPLv3.

Whether that's a win or loss depends on what your goals are.

Re:Other services removed

[jimicus]

Apple already use Samba 3 (albeit a fairly ancient version) in Snow Leopard. You wouldn't get AD support without Samba 4 (which is still in alpha and has been for years).

Re:Other services removed

[larry bagina]

Samba has been replaced with SMBX as a daemon. I haven't seen a whole lot of information on it (and they haven't made the source code available).

Re:Other services removed

[oatworm]

That's because Samba went GPL3, so Apple is having to roll their own CIFS implementation. I imagine it'll take a version or two before Apple gets within sniffing distance of feature parity.

Apple doesn't make servers for IT anymore

[jht]

They made one server-grade piece of hardware. It was the Xserve. Rumor has it that the next Mac Pro will be convertible to a rack setup, but I wouldn't bet on that coming true (as much as I'd like it). Snow Leopard Server on an Xserve was the high-water mark for the enterprise Mac server. Apple just didn't sell that many.

On the other hand, they practically can't make the mini servers fast enough to keep the channel stuffed. I've installed likely 10 or more mini servers for each Xserve I ever set up in all my years in business. They aren't industrial, but they're great SMB servers. The current model adds Thunderbolt so you can finally do good external storage (no more networked flakey FW800 drives) and a quad i7 for a grand. Lion Server has been turned into a small business server for the average shop. It'll sell millions. Might not be an enterprise product now, but when was it, really?

Re:Wait a minute

[Culture20]

The problem is, OSX started almost requiring a GUI for simple administration. /etc/crontab depreciated in favor of xml plist files. /etc/fstab depreciated in favor of xml plist files. Almost any simple, easy to use configuration file depreciated in favor of xml plist files. A pain to read an edit unless you're using the GUIs (which were suprisingly useful, especially the Server Admin). Strangely, apache config files didn't shift to plist format, but the Server Admin GUI edited them well enough.

If Final Cut Pro is any indication...

[rwade]

Earlier in the year, Apple released a new version of it's popular professional video editing software, Final Cut Pro X. There was much belly aching by the user community and in the media about missing features. Indeed, the comments from professional users are eerily similar to those comments of IT admins about Lion Server -- basically that it's being dumbed down for the consumer market.

Just a few weeks ago, Apple updated the FAQ for this software, with CNet quoting the following:

"Final Cut Pro X is a breakthrough in nonlinear video editing. The application has impressed many pro editors, and it has also generated a lot of discussion in the pro video community," the FAQ reads. "We know people have questions about the new features in Final Cut Pro X and how it compares with previous versions of Final Cut Pro. Here are the answers to the most common questions we've heard."

In the FAQ, which details specifics about importing, editing, media management, export and purchase, Apple's tried to make one thing clear: some of the missing features will return with future software updates.

Indeed, Apple may be as inclined due to this backlash to reverse itself with OSX Lion as it was with Final Cut Pro. It's entirely reasonable to project that missing server features may make their return to the Sever Admin panel or as stand-alone add-ons.

After all, I doubt that Apple is trying to get rid of the userbase of corporate departments that use OSX Server and technologies like the group print spooler and the Quicktime streaming server are already developed, coded, and released -- so why not roll them back in?

Re:If Final Cut Pro is any indication...

[jimicus]

In the FAQ, which details specifics about importing, editing, media management, export and purchase, Apple's tried to make one thing clear: some of the missing features will return with future software updates.

Indeed, Apple may be as inclined due to this backlash to reverse itself with OSX Lion as it was with Final Cut Pro. It's entirely reasonable to project that missing server features may make their return to the Sever Admin panel or as stand-alone add-ons.

If there is one thing I've learned over the years, it's that promises of "Jam tomorrow!" are next to useless.

You or I have precisely zero idea of Apple's internal roadmap and even less idea of what issues are driving the decisions that form that roadmap, and future functionality can be changed at the drop of a hat. The same is true for more-or-less any IT vendor. Until such time as the product is released, it doesn't exist.

Re:If Final Cut Pro is any indication...

[Estanislao Mart�nez]

In the FAQ, which details specifics about importing, editing, media management, export and purchase, Apple's tried to make one thing clear: some of the missing features will return with future software updates.

Indeed, Apple may be as inclined due to this backlash to reverse itself with OSX Lion as it was with Final Cut Pro. It's entirely reasonable to project that missing server features may make their return to the Sever Admin panel or as stand-alone add-ons.

The problem is that for the professional market, the "temporary downgrade" strategy, if it can be pulled off at all, can only be done so when the vendor offers visibility into the roadmap and continues to support the older, fuller-featured version while the new one catches up.

And Apple are pretty bad at this, not just with FCP, but also with Aperture, which I've experience first-hand. Want to know when Apple is planning to add support to Aperture for a new camera that was just released? Good luck; it could be next month, or it could be more than a year, and no indication from Apple on which is more likely. In the meantime, Adobe will have at least limited support within a month, with an explanation of the roadmap to full support.

After all, I doubt that Apple is trying to get rid of the userbase of corporate departments that use OSX Server and technologies like the group print spooler and the Quicktime streaming server are already developed, coded, and released -- so why not roll them back in?

Um, because they perceive that spending those resources on something else will have a higher return?

Re:If Final Cut Pro is any indication...

[rwade]

After all, I doubt that Apple is trying to get rid of the userbase of corporate departments that use OSX Server and technologies like the group print spooler and the Quicktime streaming server are already developed, coded, and released -- so why not roll them back in?

Um, because they perceive that spending those resources on something else will have a higher return?

What resources would it require, really? The features IT admins seem to be lamenting (at least as noted in TFA) -- QuickTime streaming, the print spooler, NT4-style login server -- are already developed. It would seem to me to be very un-resource-intensive to roll those already-developed features into a OSX Lion server that is not exactly a big change in architecture from the last version.

Re:If Final Cut Pro is any indication...

[BitZtream]

Samba, due to the switch to GPLv3 is no longer something Apple wants anything at all to do with. That kinda knocks a hole into your 'already developed' since they no longer consider that software to be acceptable to them.

It isn't intended for IT

[jasomill]

Rather, it's intended for small businesses that primarily use Mac desktops and don't have an IT department — thus Apple focused on removing things from the basic GUI admin tools that didn't directly support this application — are there seriously admins out there who are familiar enough with Apache and bind to run a nontrivial server, yet "uncomfortable" with command-line tools and configuration files?

The fact that the only hardware Apple markets as a "server" is a Mac mini should be the first clue.

As for "lack of Windows support," this is just Apple's typical "angling for new rather than old" — Active Directory has never been a good fit for small businesses with a single server. The main reason it shows up in this environment other than "because Microsoft documentation implies there is no alternative" is "because some application requires it" — and vendors whose applications make nontrivial use of AD are unlikely to support non-Microsoft AD servers in the first place, even if Apple's servers could pass some hypothetical industry-standard Active Directory regression test suite, which doesn't even exist in the first place. And not tilting at windmills is generally regarded as good business sense.

Given that small businesses will almost surely be either "mostly Mac" or "mostly Windows," it doesn't strike me as "stupid" for Apple to make things as easy as possible for "mostly Mac" organizations, given especially the potential for growth in this market, rather than trying to compete with other vendors' products "on their own terms," even at the expense of the very small number of "enterprise IT shops" heavily invested in Apple servers.

Re:It isn't intended for IT

[phillymjs]

The fact that the only hardware Apple markets as a "server" is a Mac mini should be the first clue.

Wrong. They sell a server configuration of the Mac Pro, as well. They've sold a server configuration of their high-end tower since the waning days of the beige G3 machines back in 1998; the mini server is a relatively new phenomenon. Anyway, the "Server" configuration is just a matter of prepackaged and preinstalled convenience-- any Mac could be a server, it just needs OS X Server installed on it. They could offer laptops with a "server" configuration if they wanted to.

Granted, in most cases I'd rather have something rackmountable with LOM and redundant PSUs, but for the SMB market most likely to use a Mac as a server, a mini is perfect-- it's tiny, it's quiet, it sips power, and it doesn't need much in the way of care and feeding. Throw a low-end UPS on it, mirror its internal drives, hook up an external USB drive for Time Machine backups, and you've got yourself a pretty capable little box. Especially when the alternative would be some Dell or HP monstrosity running Windows SBS-- if SBS gets any more bloated and ungainly, the boot time will need to be measured with a calendar.

~Philly

Re:Oh boy, more speculative click bait about OSX L

[DrgnDancer]

You said this earlier, and I still don't see how installing Linux servers will solve you problem. They ripped out a sub-set of what were generally believed to be pretty poor GUI administration tools. No actually services or daemons were removed, just some GUI tools. The Linux boxes you replace your servers with will also not have these GUI tools. You aren't solving your problem. Either A) stick with the OSX servers and configure them using the remaining GUI tools and some command line tools, or B) install Linux on your severs and configure those services with even fewer GUI tools and even more command line tools. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for Linux servers. When I used Mac clients I typically back them with Linux servers anyway, I just don't see how switching to Linux is going to "fix" the "problems" brought out in this article.

gesundheit

[Medievalist]

11

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Re:People use Mac servers for more than a hobby?

[Culture20]

What role does it serve that isn't completely covered, and done better, by a Linux distro or Windows Server?

Running Apple software on server hardware. At least until the Xserve warranties run out. Then there's no stable way to run Apple software on server hardware.

In the same boat

[theolein]

I'm also a Mac admin and we're actively looking for replacements for Apple's gear two or three years down the road. We made the mistake, being a mostly Mac company (about 20% Windows) of letting ourselves be convinced into switching over to a Mac server based server infrastructure back in 2006, just around the time Apple killed the XRaid. I suppose the writing was on the wall back then already, but we didn't really want to look too closely. When Apple killed the XServer with two months notice at the end of last year, it became blindingly obvious, though. Anyone using Mac server software or gear in a larger than workgroup sized company should think carefully before using this tool.

Re:In the same boat

[Bert64]

I believe Apple are now supporting OSX server in non apple hardware, or at least within some hypervisor implementations...
It kinda makes sense, since there's no point maintaining their own line of servers which was never much of a range, and were never big sellers.

Re:In the same boat

[EXrider]

I believe Apple are now supporting OSX server in non apple hardware, or at least within some hypervisor implementations...

No, they aren't, VMware extended their products to offer support, the ball was in Apples court but Apple just fucked the enterprise over with 10.7's EULA. You're only allowed to run it virtualized on Apple hardware. Additionally, If you want the hardware to actually be supported by Apple, you're pretty much relegated to virtualizing on top of OS X using Parallels, Fusion or VirtualBox as Apple will not support you running ESXi on their hardware. Not to mention, the Mac Mini and Pro aren't even server class hardware anyways.

Re:We get the idea

[stewbacca]

"News for Apple execs, stuff that mattes to Apple"

I've always been a "glossy" fan myself.

Re:We get the idea

[stewbacca]

great until they max out the consumer market and IT won't allow it anywhere near a corporate lan.

How would that be any different than the past 26 years?

Apple Servers??

[echusarcana]

I thought this was a joke at first. In 22 years in IT, outside of use in the film industry, I have never heard of any business that used Mac servers. Linux is far more accepted in the server room. At most, the corporate world accepts a few Mac workstations lurking in creative departments ripe for downsizing.

Given that attitude, why would Apple invest effort in this area?

Come on.

[fyngyrz]

Oh, they know what it is -- it's that OS that doesn't advertise. So the editorial (commercial benefit) question is, Windows or OSX?

Doesn't matter, though, because serious server types wouldn't give this article their valuable time. They know the Mac is Un*x, and software admin on a Mac is substantially similar to other unices. The real issues are hardware issues. Want (currently) 24 usable threads (12 hyperthreaded cores) ? Lean towards the Mac. Want failover PSUs and hot swappable drives? Lean towards other hardware (and of necessity, away from the Mac.) Got a relatively small system to set up, a Mac is fine. Even a small one. Regulatory concerns... not so fine. Lion is kind of sucky (speaking as a Mac guy), it's really a consumer GUI downgrade, bringing the disadvantages of IOS to OSX, courtesy of some sweat-lodge-addled lunatic at Apple, but it really doesn't matter, because the server heart of OSX isn't GUI based anyway. Anyone who requires "server GUI tools" is only worth an LOL anyway in a serious server environment. The OSX GUI server tools don't retain changes made other than those they directly support... they'll wipe out your subtleties in one click, and so no serious IT department would even *consider* using them -- having said that, there are a fair number of point-n-click IT departments out there without complex setups and no need for them, either.

Sticking with Snow Leopard Server

[phillymjs]

I haven't had a chance to sit down and play with Lion Server yet, but the reviews I've read so far (including this one) do not impress me. Hopefully some features will get added back due to customer complaints. If the bit where you need two different admin apps to configure all the services is true, that's completely asinine. They had it right in Snow Leopard Server, where the Server Preferences app was aimed at non-geeks, but if you knew what you were doing you could do what you needed to from within Server Admin.

~Philly

My real question

[jafac]

I guess the real question I have is:
How can I hack my old PSU from my dual 2.0 GHz G5 so that it will support a modern intel motherboard, so I can build a new system using the old (sexy) aluminum powermac case and power supply (and fan)? (I'm actually not all that "in love" with the PSU - just don't want to have to purchase a brand new one if I don't have to - but it's one sexy case - especially if I buff-off the Apple logo on the side, and maybe acid-etch or silkscreen something else in there.

MacOS X print service has always been a joke.

[jbn-o]

[...] "but lacks the enterprise features that previous print servers had"

MacOS X print serving was always a joke even for OD-bound Macs in a strictly Mac environment (i.e., using nothing but what Apple would sell you). One would expect an OpenDirectory server to publish a PPD alongside a URL to a printer location (such as one might need to do if one uses EFI RIPs and the corresponding EFI PPD to connect to an LPR print queue). No way; one must distribute the PPD via other means (static image, radmind, package install system, one-off local install, what have you) and then publish the print queue with the OD server pointing to wherever that PPD is installed on the machine. This is remarkably immature printer serving.

Deleting managed printers from the client is not straightforward. This should be as simple as removing the printer from the relevant group the client is in, logging the client out, and logging back in as a valid user on the client. But in practice this generally requires removing a bunch of managed print queues (the ones named "mcx_" followed by a number) then letting OD push down the printer set you want.

It would be easier, less time-consuming, and more predictable to "manage" the printers by giving the relevant CLI CUPS commands manually. At least then you'd get feedback about how well printer creation went and you would know what's going on each step of the way.

Setting up shared print queues on MacOS X Server is also a time-consuming joke as you wait for the Apple-made UI let you indicate which protocols you'll use to share a print queue.

Is hot failover working for all services one runs?

[jbn-o]

The dual PSU is an issue, but the mini's are so small and cheap enough why wouldn't you just be running several and have hot failover to the working ones?

Isn't this a way of saying one should only run services that have a failover mechanism built into them?

Why Home Server

[wesleyjconnor]

If appletv takes care of your movies and all your documents will soon be in the cloud, what use is a home server in the Apple garden?
Even an apparently cut down version which has less features.

Re:We get the idea

[sjames]

The earnings are somewhat meaningful, but will be delayed. Apple could stop selling anything but kids plastic rings tomorrow and their earnings would still look OK for a short time.

Share price is largely meaningless. Making money in the stock market no longer has anything to do with investing in solid companies. It is more a matter of predicting what will look cool tomorrow and buying it up today. Lather rinse repeat. It doesn't much matter if the company involved even has a product as long as their press releases are sufficiently whizz-bang. There may be SOME correlation between a solid company and looking cool to traders tomorrow, but it's only a loose one in the short term.

In this case, though, server was never a big part of Apple, so a complete failure there won't look that big on the quarterly. Perhaps it will result in less improvement in the quarterlies later, but it won't be visible since it would only be a conjecture.

stopped reading right here

[milkmage]

"A problem for administrators is that there is no supported way to make your own bootable installation DVD. There is an unsupported hack to create one, but it can bring up other complications."

here's apples official unsupported hack to making your own recovery disc.. for the uninitiateld, you can substitue blank DVD or USB stick for USB drive.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4718

first thing I did was make a USB stick so I wouldn't have to download it more than once.

Re:Just fits in perfectly with the

[MemoryDragon]

Actually most people just panned Vista because of the slowness the indexing introduced.
Either way Lion might not be Apples Vista, but it definitely is a shoddy release.
The fun thing is that on the Apple Support forums people are criticizing Lion left and right, while here instantly the fanboys jump in, either way
I will give a list of annoyances and as far as I can see most users have the same issues with it.

a) Finder, gray in gray icons, the idea was to make the thing more document centric, the problem is in a file manager the navigational control
is an important area more or less the document, now if you want to navigate you have to look at your sidebar twice. I dont have a problem with the gray icons on top. Usability 100% worse.
No option to revert it back

b) Versioning in combination with autosave, removes the users ability to keep control whenever it is saved, to the worse save as does not work anymore, you now have to clone first, then issue a save as a second command, but the save option still is there to enforce a save. Catastrophic for users who rely on a try and save or undo workflow.
To the worse you cannot turn it off for users who do not want to have this workflow.

A better working worflow would be just to version on save, or at least make this versioning workflow optional

c) Mission control half baked, you cannot see minimized windows anymore, you cannot directly drop from the one small space to another, you have to move to the space first with ctrl left / right and then drop the window from there. Add to that a bug that the spaces windows dissapear from time to time (aka are still there but invisible) 80% done, 20% vital spaces functionality forgotten

d) Local snapshots, while usable, it at least in my case adds about 1 Gig of backup data on a machine which basically idles 95% of the day.
Not sure how big the backup grows. After resyncing with time chaine the backup data on the local hd is still there, only turning time machine off removes it. Bad for people with small SSDs. Btw. there is also no way to relocate the backup data to a second hd. Time machine notices the relocation and opens a second backup set.

e) Launcher, half baked again and full of bugs. For some people the programs are stuck in launcher and not removed or added, bug.
The bigger problem is, they forgot the fulltext search functionality which is vital and even ios has.

f) Quicktime, nice to have the youtube upload functionality, but the upload is broken and results in gray youtube videos, workaround so far is to export it into 720p format and then upload it

g) Spotlight indexing, one improvement, you finally can search while spotlight is indexing, downside, after every reboot, spotlight is working for about 5 minutes, not a problem for me due to having an ssd, but others might have a problematic experience there. Reminds me a lot on Vista where the indexer was working for 20 minutes which made my machine back then crawl.

h) replacement of well working hotkeys and behaviors with annoying semi working guestures. Pre Lion it was possible to open a Single Window Expose with a reliable long click on the icon, now you have to use a three or four finger guesture, which works in about 90% of the cases.

i) Inconsistency, while the rest of the operating system had a color bleed, the iCal and address book got an annoying new color scheme with partially fake controls, which sticks out very ugly and reduces the usability due to colour clutter (ars technica has written a detailed article about it). They basically made interface design errors or the early 90s there.

j) SMB Problems, apple now has rolled their own SMB implementation which fails for a load of people

k) The versioning itself is hidden in the top menu under the menu title, close to impossible to find for people without knowing it

l) You cannot put the library folder into the time machine excludes, you only can reach it in finder, by using the alt key on the finders menu

m) Gene

Just pick a stance

[bryan1945]

First it's "Mac is too much GUI based." Now it's "Mac has less GUI stuff." Make up your damn minds.
As for backup, just burn the installer to a disc or copy to an USB stick.

This is really a 1.0

[Trillan]

Apple killed the traditional OS X Server with 10.7. Despite the 10.7 version number, this is really a 1.0 of something new: an entirely "overlay" based server for Mac OS X.

I expect it to grow. Some of the things it has will no doubt never come back, but I think a lot will over time.

In the meantime, if you need something missing, there's lots of great options out there: various flavours of Linux, plus Snow Leopard. No need to go to Windows, unless of course you want to.

Re:Oh boy, more speculative click bait about OSX L

[DarkVader]

They did remove a few daemons - there's no more Samba in Mac OS X. They've replaced it with some proprietary blob, it no longer handles windoze domains. Not good. QuickTime Streaming Server is gone. That's worse. They also took out the print service, which I could see being critical for some people, even though I never used it. And they took out MySQL, which doesn't bother me, since it's easy to put back. Tomcat's gone too, I never used it and I don't know how hard it is to put back.

As for the GUI tools, I've been running some Linux servers for years. I use GUI admin tools for quite a few things - unlike quite a few people here, I don't consider the command line an improvement on a good GUI, I consider it to be a step backward. It's something that I use when I have to, when there isn't a GUI that does it better. And most of the time, for most functions, there's a GUI that does it better.

The Mac OS X Server 10.6 GUI was, contrary to popular belief, quite good. It wasn't perfect, and I had to occasionally touch a command line, but for the most part it did what it needed to do, was fairly intuitive, and gave quite a bit of control. Where that GUI still works in 10.7, it's still fine. But for quite a few services, it's gone. The replacement is half-assed, and clearly aimed at people who want a server appliance. I can't imagine it'll even work well for them. The old tools have to be downloaded separately - which means that not everyone is even going to see them, they're not likely to be considered a high priority by Apple, and they may even be slated to go away at some point.

Now on Linux, I can install Webmin. That handles GUI operation for almost everything I do, and works well. It's not great for DNS, but I'm used to command line for that anyway. For just about everything else, it's great. It's a unified GUI server management tool. I can of course install Webmin on the Mac too. It sort of works - it's more broken than working, though.

So I'm looking at good and supported admin tools on Linux, and broken and partially functional admin tools on the Mac.

The problem Linux solves, then? A supported path forward for some of the services I need, with good GUI admin tools.

Going forward, I'm still seeing Linux for some services, but since the Mac does better with CalDAV, CardDAV, and AFP file sharing, I'm probably going with a mix in the future.